Constructive criticism is constructive.You don't know the first thing about what I do over here, and it's not relevant to the topic. It was a red herring and an ad hominem.
I haven't been to Afghanistan. I haven't been a soldier. I have reasons why I was confident about what I said. But my evidence won't make any difference to you, until you are willing to hear it. At thisd point, you seem to be antagonistic to every possibility that I raise.
I also agree that the topic is not about helping you survive. It was an aside, whose reasoning DOES relate to the topic. But you seem unwilling to even consider it, and so you haven't considered the reasoning, and so for you, it is off-topic, because you haven't even considered its relation to the topic, because you haven't even considered it. So for the time being, I would agree that for you, it's off-topic.
As for the rest of the post, if you want to use long posts, then so will I.
It's not about Creationists being able to be dishonest, it's about Creationists necessitating intellectual dishonesty. There are two reasons someone's a Creationist; 1) They haven't look into the subject and have not been well enough educated to understand the theory of evolution or the problems intrinsic to Creationism, and 2) Ignoring the evidence in favor of your preconceived, mythical beliefs. In the first case, no dishonesty is necessary, but the subject is ignorant about the topic entirely. In the second case, well, that's just about the definition of intellectual dishonesty.
It sounds like you are saying that anyone who disagrees with evolutionary theory is either ignorant or stupid.
I have several problems with that:
1) You might be able to say that. But I can't, because of the basic principles of science. One of the founding principles of science, is that we have only what we know, and what we can figure out, and neither is ever going to be complete. Karl Popper actually wrote about this, and as far as I understand, it is the basis of his theory of scientific falsification. Also, the Supreme Court ruled against Creationists, and in the summary of the reasons, one of the things they stated was that science is always tentative. So there is a lot that shows us that according to the principles of science, one can never say with certainty that someone else is wrong, just because he or she disagrees with a particular theory.
2) We also know that there are lots of scientific theories that scientists and people were sure about, such as the Miasma Theory, Newtonian gravity and the Copenhagen Interpretation, that turned out to be wrong. So even when it comes to the theories we are sure about, we have form, that shows we were wrong.
3) There are a lot of people who were treated very, very badly, because people were sure that they were right. The Salem Witch Trials were done because the early American Pilgrims were SURE. African slavery was tolerated under the certainty that they were ignorant savages who needed to be educated, and that the only way to do it was to force them to do our will, until they learned what was right, which was our way of thinking. History is littered with such examples.
4) There are a lot of scientists who were treated pretty badly because their ideas were radically different than scientific consensus.
Einstein wrote so many papers that are universally acknowledged that are so insightful and so right, that they guy looks like an amazing genius, that almost certainly showed since he was a child. Yet Einstein was rejected from application to every university teaching job, for 2 whole years. He had to become a patent agent, because no-one in the scientific community wanted him. But after he published, everyone wanted him. Why? Because he was such a genius, that his isights were beyond his professors. They just couldn't deal with the fact that Einstein was so far ahead of them. It was easier to reject him, than face humility. So he had to prove it to everyone, that he really was a genius, before they would accept the evidence that they had seen with their own eyes and heard with their own ears.
Einstein also received much condemnation over his theories of relativity. Many eminent scientists were very critical of his work. From history, it seems that if Arthur Eddington had not acted as Einstein's bulldog, then Relativity would have been dismissed as crackpot nonsense.
Hugh Everett came up with the theory of the Multiverse. At the time, scientific consensus was the Copenhagn Interpretation. The scientific community so ridiculed Everett's work, that it took a toll on the man, leading to his committing suicide.
5) I myself have been treated very badly by lots of people, who claimed that I was talking nonsense. I was generally willing to be wrong. But people criticised me because I simply suggested alternatives MIGHT exist, and was beaten up for it several times, by non-religious people. Every time, when I was criticised in this way, or beaten up, by non-religious people, I later found out that I was right. Once of twice, those non-religious people even admitted to me, years later, that they knew that I was right, but that they had selfish interests.
So for me, when I see you being offensively critical of religious people, for having alternative views, I remember how I was treated. I don't want to be anywhere near them.
6) When those non-religious people were highly critical of me, and often beat me up for suggesting alternatives, I found that they were, without exception, wrong. What is more, I found that those who did trust in their judgement, even me, paid a heavy price for it. I have even tested this observation for myself, on several times, and the results have been amazingly accurate. I now have such accurate data, that I can confidently say, that if someone were to start criticising anyone for believing in alternatives in such a downright offensive fashion, then I know for sure that I will benefit hugely by doing the very opposite of what they claim has to be true, even if it looks like I am walking into the lions' den.
7) I had a few problems with excessive anxiety, and went to some CBT therapy on the NHS as a result, which really helped, which was standard stuff on Perfectionism. The therapist explained to me that no-one is totally right, and no-one is totally wrong, on anything. So if one person starts saying that the other person is "definitely wrong", or anything of the kind, they cannot be right. She explained to me that no-one can really know exactly what is going on in someone else's mind. So the only person that the critic can be speaking about, is himself. So if someone starts throwing around criticisms like ignorance or intellectual dishonesty, they have to come from the critic's own mind, and so, the critic is testifying about the critic, that he is ignorant, or he is intellectually dishonest. The critic may not be aware that he is testifying against himself. But he is.
However, I was taking a very different attitude to therapy by this point. I had already decided to be pragmatic about it, and test it out in real life, before accepting what a scientist said to me. So I spent the next week looking around at all sorts of situations, and seeing if the theories held. They did, amazingly so. I found that reality suddenly clicked into place, as far as much of human behaviour goes.
I am sure you already know that the NHS has far higher requirements for accuracy than even the scientific community, because they have a very limited budget, and so have to make sure that they get top value for money as far as treatments are concerned, and certainly stick with scientific consensus on all treatments, unless the evidence is totally compelling that it simply has to be right. So I believe that I have either scientific consensus on my side, or evidence that is totally compelling.
So I have reason, my own empirical evidence, and scientific consensus on my side, that such an attitude is most likely to indicate that only that the speaker is ignorant and/or intellectually dishonest.
I have more reasons to doubt your claim. But I think that should suffice for now.
You go on with the trite "it's just a theory" argument, which is an argument of accent. In science, the word ":theory" denotes the highest level of the scientific method; an explanation for a phenomenon. However, the "it's just a theory" argument supposes it's only a theory in the same way average Joe would use the word, to denote a mere guess or conjecture. Is Germ Theory "just a theory", or do you take a doctor seriously when he tell you that you have a bacterial infection?
I wrote that "It's just a theory, just like lots of other theories." I never argued that those other theories were wrong, only that evolutionary theory has no more reliability than a theory like electromagnetism. If I thought that electricity didn't exist, then I could hardly have read your post on my computer, could I? I was never arguing here that it was just a theory, and was wrong. I was arguing something else entirely.
Your retort reads as if you read the words "It's just a theory," and that raised the mental association that that phrase does have with Creationists saying "It's just a theory, and not fact." But I didn't say that at all. So I have to take seriously the possibility that you have leaped to a mental association, without actually having paid attention to what I actually wrote.
To me, that's worse than being wrong. That's arguing about something that was never claimed here. In a Peanuts cartoon, Lucy Van Pelt does the same. Linus says that he's ahead of his time. Lucy then goes on and on, about how that is the excuse of those who are ignorant and stupid. Linus then says that his watch says that he is late, and he got there on time, and so, he is "ahead of his time".
It's rather funny to have someone argue with me, who is not even paying attention to what I actually posted.
How do you trust anyone when they tell you anything? This is a bigger question than I can answer. However, I don't have to.
Neither do I. Science tells us that we can figure out consistent patterns of behaviour, and that we can use that information as a result, to make accurate predictions about what is going on. We can use science to tell who is giving us accurate information, and who is not. Science tells us that we can rely on the evidence, and we don't need to rely on someone's reputation, because of things like peer review. I rely on evidence, not reputation based on a system. If the evidence of what they say, and how they say it, indicates that they are telling the truth or not, based on repeated experiments, that consistently show who is telling the truth and who is not, then science says that is enough to tell us who is telling the truth, and we don't need to put trust in someone's reputation because of their chosen career.
While their papers are full of jargon and may be unreadable to some, anyone with the proper resources can duplicate any scientific experiment on their own. Anyone can science, and anyone can check the science other people use. There's a mountain of evidence, and it's not being hidden from you.
That's exactly what I do. I follow the principle of relying on the evidence. I look at what they write, and how they write it. I analyse if it makes sense. That's why I don't need to take a scientist's word for it. I can rely on science itself, to tell if they are telling the truth.
On the other hand, there could be a sort of scientific conspiracy theory, where they hide the truth from us in order to fool us, but what's the motive? Why would anyone waste all those resources just to lie to the entire world like that?
Science tells us that these conspiracies don't just magically occur. They result from things like evolution, that where there is more than one way to look at things, and that certain groups are pressured due to budget constraints, that those who are pressured will statistically become more and more numerous, in favour of the ways they are pressured. It's natural selection.
Why hasn't there ever been a scientist who has come out and told people he was bribed to act as though things which do not work actually do? You're pretty much tuck between such a conspiracy, or accepting that scientists actually do science.
Actually, there have been quite a few documented cases of that. One such case was reported in the New Scientist recently. Google "Peter Wilmhurst NMT medical". Look up the suppression of data that showed that Thalidomide AND Seroxat both had severe side-effects. These are only a few of the lots of cases where scientists were pressured and/or bribed to show that things that don't work, do.
I would suggest you actually look at the evidence yourself. It's not about taking anyone's words or what people believe, it's about what's actually real.
Exactly. Until I have examined the evidence for myself, taking the scientific community's word for it, is taking someone else's word for it.
Sure, scientists probably do have biases. That doesn't mean they're suddenly all liars and part of some conspiracy, though!
I didn't say they were part of a conspiracy. It's natural selection. Natural selection doesn't just work on non-humans animals hunting for food. It also works on human animals trying to get whatever will get them food in the most accessible way, which for humans living in societies in the modern day, is money.
Science is a process of determining how things work, and religion is... well, beliefs. Which of those two things would it seem are better able to figure out how things work?
The subject is not about religion. Even if it was, there is no black-or-white, all-or-nothing situation, where you either blindly accept everything that scientists say, or blindly accept everything that religious people say. Science tells that we should look at the evidence. Where each person sees that the evidence agrees with scientific consensus, he/she should accept that. Where each person sees that the evidence agrees with a particular religion, he/she should accept that. Where each person sees that the evidence agrees with a different religion, he/she should accept that. Where each person sees that the evidence agrees with a scientist who is against scientific consensus, he/she should accept that. Where each person sees that the evidence agrees with an entirely different alternative, he/she should accept that. There is no either-or here. That is all-or-nothing thinking. It's perfectionism, and no human can be perfect. It's like trying to act as if you have reached the speed of light, when you never will. Pointless, and guaranteed that you are going to be wrong.
Better to be scientific about it, and stop blindly picking sides, as if you are a football fan, rooting for your favourite team.
Change our criteria about who to call scientists? You're just being absurd, now. Scientists are people who do science. If they don't do science, they're not scientists!
I have observed that there are quite a few people who do science, who are not taken seriously as scientists by the scientific community, like James Lovelock, and there have been many in the past, like Edward Jenner. There are even people who have written that they never did propose any scientific hypotheses or did any experiments, like Richard Dawkins, who wrote as much in his book "The Selfish Gene", that he was only proposing a different way to look at the subject, who are still regarded as scientists.
The word "Scientist" seems to be generally used as "Those who are regarded as scientists by those in the scientific community, irrespective of their endeavours". Your definition is more apt. It just doesn't seem to be used as criteria for who is called a scientist. It seems that it is just presumed that whoever is called a scientist, also has your criteria applying to him, i.e.
Scientist => "He/She who does science"
Rather than, what you claim, which is:
"He/She who does science" => Science
Entirely different statements. But they do look alike. So it's easy to mix them up.
If you're basing this entire argument on the fact that every scientists everywhere might be lying or might simply be wrong, then you're just being foolish.
Of course I don't. I just don't rely on scientists to tell me what science says. I rely on science to tell me what science says. The latter is listening to the evidence. The former is hearsay.
Don't take anyone at their word! Science is about evidence, science is about observing reality, science is about figuring out how things work. Just do that! Do it on your own! Examine the genetic structure of animals, consider their endogenous retroviruses and how they seem to match up, examine "ring species", examine the fossil record, examine the geological columns! It's not like this stuff is being hidden behind the scenes and we're just being told to take it on faith!
Until I have examined all the evidence for myself, I havent' seen the evidence. However, telling me that I should accept it in the meantime, because there is "mountains of evidence", is asking me to take it on faith that there are mountains of evidence supporting evolutionary theory, and not nearly as much suggesting alternatives might be true. That is still asking me to take it on faith.
That's religion's idiom. You take religion on faith.
Sola Fide is of the 5 Solas of Protestant Xianity. I was raised in a Protestant country, the UK. But I was never a Protestant. Nor are Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or just about most religious people. So I don't know where you get the idea to asssociate that religion is based solely on faith, excepting that it might be YOUR religious upbringing that stressed to only rely on faith, and that you have made the mistake of applying the fallacy of composition, assuming that something true of part of a whole must also be true of the whole.
Science is about observing the facts and figuring out why it works that way. Don't take the scientist's words, look at their works.
That's what I do, and I keep coming across papers that make mistakes, that are not obvious, until you actually try to work out what they are saying for yourself, and then they are glaring.
You're operating on a fundamentally flawed idea that science operates on some sort of authoritarian method, whereas that's simply not the case. Science is a full fledged meritocracy. An idea is accepted because it explains the facts, and the better it explains the facts, the more it's accepted. Who says what is totally irrelevant. We have no Gods or Messiahs whom cannot be questioned, we have leaders in fields who make discoveries or popularize science, and that's as close as we get. In science, you can question anything, and if you discover someone's wrong and replace their idea with a better one, you just did a good thing! There is no dogma in science, or else you aren't taken seriously any more. There are no crack-pot scientists like in the movies, who have a feeling something's right but cannot prove it. That's not how science works. Learn how science works, and stop operating on your false perception of it.
I did want to learn how science works, partially because I was interested in it since a young child, and partially because I was considering a career in science. So I went and talked to scientists about it. I watched scientists talk on TV. I talked to lots of people who had worked in scientific circles. I observed how things were done in university. I didn't take any one person's word for it. I collected the data, considered bias, and then found correlations. It turned out that science operates in an extremely competitive way, that involves a lot of office politics, and a lot of academic politics, and not much in the way of a meritocracy. It's more like sticking 2 scientists on Question Time, and seeing who can humiliate the other more. Whoever can make the other seem more like a fool, is the winner.
Sure, that would mean that science is mostly wrong, and that's also what scientists say, that 90% of published papers are wrong. What happens is a combination of evolution by natural selection, and the Central Limit Theorem. Evolution via natural selection suggests that over the short term, science is fought over funding, and that turns it into a political animal. Over the longer term, those people die out, and so do their supporters. When no-one is left to fight about it, the public just go with whatever seems to work better, and over centuries of use by billions of people, the pressure of people needing things that will help them, slowly drives more and more popularity with things that work, and less and less popularity of things that don't work. That's just the theory. The Central Limit Theorem comes along and then says that if we examine any single theory, the chances of it being like that are random, but that the chances of your average theory being like that, is statistically very, very high.
To put it simply, I doubt you've done any serious debating on this topic. If you have, you were never interested in determining what's actually true, as you've been relying on red herrings and other logical fallacies the entire time. I'd say your debates went nowhere because you love to ignore the topic and the relevant arguments entirely, prefering irrelevant rants about how you're not going to trust silly things like "evidence" or "reasoning", and basing the foundation of your entire argument on a false impression of science works.
I've come across other people who seem to be very gung-ho on evolution, who felt the same. They seemed to always want to know if I was an Evolutionist or a Creationist. I would always answer "neither".
I don't make my decisions on party lines. I don't vote for Labour because I want to help the common man, and I think that Labour will always help the common man. I don't vote for Conservative because I want to be rich, and I think that the Conservatives will always help the rich. I look at the specific things that each party is saying, and decide on that basis.
I do the same thing with science. On some things, I agree with the scientific consensus. On other things, I don't. I just don't blindly follow the scientific consensus, as if it's always right. I examine the evidence, and decide for myself.
Yes, I will argue endlessly...
Please do. I once argued with someone for 45 hours straight, over the course of 3 days. I've been know to argue for 4 hours without a break, and do that day after day, just for fun. I am only in conflict because people keep telling me that I am ridiculously productive, and could probably do something even better than curing cancer, in the time I spent arguing.
until you prove to me that I'm wrong, which you can only do if you address the relevant points of the topic.
The OP opened with "evolution is bullshit". Other posters claimed that evolution was definitely true. I am arguing that neither is the case.
I argue because it's a fun way to sharpen my ability to reason. That's my motivation to do it. My goal is to determine who's correct (if anyone is), and who is incorrect, through determining what the facts of the matter actually are.
How about you?
I write to learn about what people think, and how people think. The more I understand others' minds, the more I am able to utilise that knowledge to have a successfully happy life.
Wow, there is so much wrong with everything you just said, I don't even know where to start. While know human can know what is true and what is not true with absolute certainty, it does not mean we cannot know things without absolute certainty, for starters.
If you know something, that is short for knowing that it is true. So by definition, if you cannot know what is true with absolute certainty, you cannot know things with absolute certainty. If you cannot know things with absolute certainty, then you can ONLY you cannot know things without absolute certainty.
For example, I am not absolutely certain that I'm typing on the wireless keyboard. It could be that I'm a brain in a jar, dreaming that this is the case. However, since I have no reason to suppose that's the case, and I do have reason to suppose I'm actually using this keyboard, I go with what I observe happening. Could I be wrong? Sure, but I have no reason to suppose that I am, so why would I?
Hume, the atheist, would argue that you can only suppose that you might be typing, and that you simply cannot be sure.
If you are not in a jar, and there is an advantage to you by typing, and if you are in a jar, and there is still no disadvantage to you by typing, then optimists would point out that either way, there is an overall advantage by typing. But if there is some disadvantage by assuming something, even if it is very unlikely, and no disadvantage by not doing it, then you are better off in not doing it, just in case.
For instance, I was on a driving lesson, and making a right-hand turn at a junction. There were 3 lanes on the other side of the road. The lights were red. Nothing was moving. The first 2 lanes had cars in front of them, and the last lane was clear. Nothing was moving. My driving instructor said that I should move quickly across the first 2 lanes, but edge very slowly across the 3rd one. I asked him why I have to go slowly, when the lane is clear. He said that someone could come down the empty lane, at high speed. So I have to check the empty lane is clear, before crossing it. I said that the chances of that happening is monumentally small. He agreed, but said that nevertheless, it can happen, and therefore, I have to play it safe. I then pointed out that a car could come driving down the other 2 lanes, smash into the cars there, and shunt them into me. He then pointed out that while that was true, the speed at which they could be shunted was small enough that I could cross them easily, before they could hit me. I then pointed out that some car could potentiall come down with enough speed, say at 300mph, that they could be shunted fast enough to hit me. He then pointed out that while that was true, a car going anywhere near that fast would be so unstable that it would overturn, long before it could achieve the speed to hit those cars with that much momentum.
There are numerous other cases like that that he explained to me about. Essentially, in driving, we use a risk analysis. We don't bet on the most likely occurrence. We assume that the unthinkable could happen. We only rely on hedge-betting, where our actions are such, that whatever will happen, we are always covered. That's how we minimise risk.
The most optimal way of operating is not going with what seems most likely. It's going with whatever covers you, whether you are right or wrong.
Science operates with the knowledge that absolute certainty does not exist. If it did, we'd have no reason to investigate things scientifically, after all.
Then as Karl Popper pointed out, we can never say that we are "right", and consequently, we can never say that someone who disagrees with us is "wrong". We can only do a risk analysis for ourselves, and then let the other person do the same. If he has a different view, but is covered no matter what, then he's doing just as well as we are. However, if we are not covering ourselves for the possibility that we are wrong, then we are exposing ourselves to an unlikely but possible risk, and the other guy isn't.
Subjective truths are things which are true only in reference to a specific subject. For example, I like pizza. Pizza is good to me. That's not an objective state of pizza, it's not necessarily tasty, it's only tasty because I perceive it to be so. Subjective truths are things which are only true in relation to a subject.
Saying "I like the taste of pizza" is called a "qualified truth", that is, it is objectively true, but is qualified by our caveat that it is only dependent on our experience. Saying "pizza tastes good" is a subjective truth, because it is only true if our experience is true for all, which it is not, and hence the truth is subject to us, but cannot be said to be true for anyone else.
However, Earth has a moon whether I observe this fact or not. That is not subjective. Life either evolves or it does not, that's not subjective. Things exist or they do not regardless whether or not we perceive it or understand it or totally misunderstand it.
It's true that the Earth either has a moon or does not, and that life either evolved or didn't. But if you say that the Earth has a moon, that is called a subjective truth, because it is only subject to your experience. Someone else may have been living a nomadic experience, and always moving across the Earth, in such a way that the moon was always on the opposite side of the Earth to him, and hence may have seen the moon. So saying that "I believe that Earth has a moon", is a qualified truth, that it is true that I believe that the Earth has a moon, and hence is an objective truth. Saying that "the Earth has a moon", is subject to your experience, and hence, is not an objective truth. The same is true of evolution. Saying "I believe that all species came to be how they were, only by evolutionary processes, and by no other means", can be an objective qualified truth. Saying "all species came to be how they were, only by evolutionary processes, and by no other means", is a subjective unqualified truth.
All of this typing, and you still haven't even attempted to take on the actual subject. This leads me to believe that you have no leg to stand on. You cannot defeat the theory of evolution with reasoning, so you attempt to undermine reasoning itself, you attempt to prove that we cannot actually know anything.
That's because my examinations still have not persuaded me one way or the other. A lot of people want me to pick sides, because they find it more comfortable to deal with all-or-nothing thinking, because it's unsophisticated, it appeals to the primitive mind, and because it lets them see me as either "friend or foe".
I find that things are never this cut and dried. I find that all-or-nothing thinking cost me dearly, that it never really properly explained what was going on, that it would lead to even more primitive thinking, even to violence in others. I also found that when the chips were down, those who were in my camp, so to speak, often acted as foes, and those in the "opposing camp", were often the ones to help me with my difficulties. So I find it incredibly unrealistic and downright unhelpful to think in monochromatic tones.
I prefer the world of colour. Everything is different shades of red, green and blue. Some are more red and less blue, some are less blue and more green, and nothing and no-one is always my friend or always my enemy. Everyone agrees with me about some things, and disagrees with me about others. Life is much more memetically diverse and complex than we like to see things.
Even if we assume you're correct, that we live in a world that's only an illusion, it's still pragmatic to presume the things we observe are the way things actually are until we have a reason to suppose otherwise.
It's not. We don't do that in driving, because that sort of attitude causes people to kill other people with cars. We do a risk analysis, and a risk analysis is subject to each particular situation.
You called yourself immature. That wasn't me. That was you.
I have not problem with calling myself immature. My friends would laugh if I said that I was mature. They are always calling me out when I say stupid things. But then, I like that about them. I cannot see all my faults. They help me to see the faults that I miss.
I'm sorry you don't like reasoning or evidence, if that's any consolation.
That's all right. That's why I don't mind being called immature by my friends. The minute I stopped thinking of myself as being at least partially immature, was when I got over-confident, and stopped listening to reasoning or evidence, and that was when my life screwed up. I find that one goes hand in hand with the other, that those listen to reason and evidence, are fine with being called immature, and those who really think they have "the answer", are almost always ignoring lots of good reason and good evidence, and everyone else keeps asking me why those people believe as they do, when it's obvious they are wrong.
No, where did I not do what I expected INTPs to do, and why is it relevant?
INTPs are much more apt to stay on the fence on most issues. Even when they are 100% sure they are right, they are usually not likely to argue with it. The exceptions are where what was said disagrees with their Si, what they were told, or their Fe, where if it is accepted, then it would mean others would get hurt. But even so, INTPs are, by their type, still supposed to accept that the other person COULD be right, but isn't definitely so.
I maintain that you are not definitely right, which is consistent with the definition of an INTP.
You seem to maintain that you are definitely right, and that others who disagree are definitely wrong, and then if you are wrong, then others will prove their view to you, to the point that you will end up agreeing with them, and if they do not prove that they are right, then you are right. From what INTJs are saying on INTJf, that is what INTJs testified about themselves, that they do. It is also within the J-nature of an INTJ. So I did consider that you might be an INTJ.
However, I have been mulling over the differences between an INTJ and an INTP, and why INTJs are so sure of themselves, and INTPs are not, when they are both NTs. INTJs use Ne-Ti. INTPs use Ti-Ne. Perceiving functions like N/S, are supposed to be used for coming up with ways of understanding how to make sense of them. Judging functions like T/F, are supposed to be used for deciding if one's understanding is correct or not. But you cannot decide if your understanding is right, if you don't have the understanding in the first place. So P-J is what we do. So what an INTJ does, P-J, makes sense. First you think of an idea, then you judge if it's right. But INTPs start with a J and end with a P. How can you come to a decision of what you want to do, if you end with an understanding, without deciding if it's right or not? You can't. So the INTP ends with "I thought of something, but have no clue if it's right or wrong". But then, the INTP couldn't decide to do anything, not even if to eat or not, and then the INTP would starve. But they don't. Why not? So I considered that the INTP might feed the Perceiving Ne back into the Judging Ti that he starts with. But because the INTP is Ti-Ne, he cycles it through, and then comes up with Ti-Ne again, leaving the same problem. So he keeps cycling through, but always ends up with a Perceiving function, which leaves him undecided. The INTP caught in such a cycle, would keep finding Ti holes in his ideas, and then coming up with a slightly different Ne, which is similar to the old Ne, but without the Ti problem. This would then cycle again and again, continually improving the Ne idea, until the Ti finds no more problems with it, at which point, the new Ne idea is the same as the old Ne idea, and more cycling just produces exactly the same results.
This would then explain why INTPs seem to do something for ages, but never completing. They keep cycling through, continually improving their ideas, as if they are caught in an eternal loop.
INTJs, however, just do the one pass of coming up with an Ni idea, which is then tested by Te. They only do one pass. So it's pretty quick, and they have confidence that their idea is right, because they tested it, and haven't come up with any new ideas since. But since it's only got 1 pass behind it, it's not nearly as improved as the Ne idea of the INTP, because the INTP idea has been refined and refined, until the INTP cannot find any fault with it.
ENTPs are Ne-Ti. They are also P-J, just like the INTJ. So they also only give their ideas one pass, and one test. So also come to ideas quickly. So they are more likely to have more confidence in their ideas, just like the INTJ. But at the same time, they aren't as likely to re-analyse their ideas for potential faults a dozen times like the INTP might.
Other possibilities are being ignored because they're unscientific and irrational.
I couldn't say that, unless I know what they all are, and can say for sure that I cannot find any way to express them in scientific jargon, understand them from a scientific viewpoint, and find that they are not at all in any way, shape or form like any other scientific theory that has been accepted. I've been asked if that was true about even more unusual theories than Creationism, and when I've discussed them with others, I've found that they can conform to scientific requirements.
I would also agree that they are irrational, if by irrational, you mean what many people mean by irrational, which is how we used to perceive irrational numbers. We now know that irrational numbers exist. But many people used to think that all numbers were only rational numbers, and that suggesting that irrational numbers existed, was likely to lead one to be ridiculed, because in those days, people thought it was obvious that all numbers had to be rational fractions, and hence, that irrational numbers couldn't exist. So often, "irrational" is a by-word for "what is commonly accepted nowadays by the intelligensia", irrespective of whether it is true or false, or how strongly our evidence is for and against it. If you argue that amongst the Western intelligensia, that they think that anything other than evolutionary theory is definitely true, then I'd agree with that. Mind you, these are the same people who used to claim that disease was spread by smell, that Malaria was a great cure for Syphilis, and things like that.
So I prefer to be logical, even if I'm being irrational. I always preferred reason and evidence, even though it often made me unpopular.
If you want, we could come up with a bunch of different creation myths all day long. It would probably even be a fun activity, which I would probably take a lot of those ideas and include them in the creation myths of a D&D game of mine.
You could do that all day long, and prove them all 100% wrong, and you'd still not have proved that other possibilities are wrong. There are a lot more alternatives than Creation myths, and I know for a fact that many people believe in alternatives to evolutionary theory that are not Creation myths.
Again, there is no dichotomy of Creationism vs Evolutionism. The real dichotomy is between Scientific Positivists and Scientific Sceptics, many of whom have nothing to do with any religions.
Creation myths are totally irrelevant when we're discussing what's actually true and should be taught to children in science classrooms, however.
It depends on what we mean by "true" and by "science". If we mean teaching them rational things, like that a few hundred years ago, irrational numbers didn't exist, and the scientific cure for every illness was leeching, supervised by a scientific physician from the Royal College of Surgeons, then yes, we should only teach them evolution, because that is the current consensus of the intelligensia. But we have to keep changing the textbooks, and we have to keep telling people that what they were told a few years ago, is wrong, because one year eggs are good, then bad, then good, and who knows what in the future.
But if we are talking about what we objectively can say for sure, and what people can rely on, both now, and in the future, then we cannot rely on an ever-changing, popularity contest.
And again, functions are primarily irrelevant. The discussion is about the truth or falseness of claims, not why we care about those claims or why we take the approaches we do to them.
You might not care. Atheists care. Logical Positivists care. It was atheists and Logical Positivists who pointed out that if you have different reasons for caring, and different approaches, then you end up with entirely different conclusions, and thus entirely different answers as to the truth or falsehood of claims.
I'm ignoring the rest of your post because it's irrelevant to the topic, and I'm going to ignore everything you post besides things that are actually relevant from now on. Who takes an argument about one thing and turns it into a radically different discussion if their problem with the original topic has any merit? Deal with the issue at hand or you simply cannot be taken seriously.
The only reason with why you have a problem with what I am saying, is that I am not saying that Creation is right, or Evolution is right.
There are more than just 2 views on this matter.
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