Why IS It That Super-Smart People, Almost INVARIABLY, Turn Out to Be Atheists? Hear it HERE…Straight from the Horse’s Mouth!

[TravelerEastWest]

43 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

I tend to align myself with Stephen Fry.

 

if there is a god then he’s an evil capricious god and I want nothing to do with him.  I would ask him to explain bone cancer in children.

 

I am amazed seemingly intelligent people cannot break free from the legacy shackles caused from the imprint of religion in their childhood.

 

It’s all dogma and nonsense.

Well said!

[Hummin]

5 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

How do you get from not understanding how the universe was created  to proof that God exists?

 

Why is it ignorant? It couldn't be more fundamental or simple. Which religion is real? All my life religious people dodge this question like kryptonite and nothiong has changed.

 

Simple, because they have faith and believe in something that comforts them, as well give them hope for something better and eternal life. 

 

I believe when I die, it is the end of me. We got one chance to live, and have to make the best out of it for me and those people close to me. 

 

We all do someway in some form

[TravelerEastWest]

1 hour ago, Lacessit said:

I am not aware of the individual name. I am aware there were leading scientists who were Muslims a thousand years ago, and more.

What surprises me is the fact that, in modern times, there seems to be no scientists of note among Muslims. Given there are about 1.4 billion followers of Islam, I have to wonder why.

i think if you take a few minutes to search you can find great scientists in all religions...

 

Sometimes it seems like certain cultures have more scientists than others Jews are around 2/10ths of a percent of the worlds population yet 20% of the Nobel prize winners are Jewish. Why is that?

 

 

Ahmed Hassan Zewail an Egyptian and American chemist, known as the "father of femtochemistry" was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on femtochemistry 

[GammaGlobulin]

1 minute ago, TravelerEastWest said:

i think if you take a few minutes to search you can find great scientists in all religions...

 

Sometimes it seems like certain cultures have more scientists than others Jews are around 2/10ths of a percent of the worlds population yet 20% of the Nobel prize winners are Jewish. Why is that?

 

 

Ahmed Hassan Zewail an Egyptian and American chemist, known as the "father of femtochemistry" was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on femtochemistry 

Devotion to study, obviously.

Why were the Germans, in general, so well educated pre-WW2?

Culture is important.

Without culture, where would we be?

Did you ever stop to consider how much culture goes into building a Boeing-747?

 

These days, it is funding that is crucial for scientific advancement.

Big funding for big projects, for big breakthroughs.

 

Armchair science is good only up to a point,

After that, hypotheses must be tested, which requires major funding.

 

 

[notmyself]

17 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

How do you get from not understanding how the universe was created  to proof that God exists?

 

Why is it ignorant? It couldn't be more fundamental or simple. Which religion is real? All my life religious people dodge this question like kryptonite and nothiong has changed.

 

'How do you get from not understanding how the universe was created  to proof that God exists?'

 

I've heard this referred to as the 'look at the trees' postulation and also the 'god of the gaps'. I believe I wrote about this earlier as an example of an oft heard claim that has never ever been shown to be valid.

 

[TravelerEastWest]

4 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

Devotion to study, obviously.

Why were the Germans, in general, so well educated pre-WW2?

Culture is important.

Without culture, where would we be?

Did you ever stop to consider how much culture goes into building a Boeing-747?

 

These days, it is funding that is crucial for scientific advancement.

Big funding for big projects, for big breakthroughs.

 

Armchair science is good only up to a point,

After that, hypotheses must be tested, which requires major funding.

 

 

Yes, study is important but what encourages the study? In history the Jews had to move countries and maybe this caused them to value portable wealth?

 

Regarding armchair studying reminds me of Lawrence in the Oppenheimer movie I saw the other day - seemed like a friendly rivalry between Theory and experiments... Both are needed. Personally I think the theory is more important but again both are needed...

[GammaGlobulin]

22 minutes ago, TravelerEastWest said:

Yes, study is important but what encourages the study? In history the Jews had to move countries and maybe this caused them to value portable wealth?

 

Regarding armchair studying reminds me of Lawrence in the Oppenheimer movie I saw the other day - seemed like a friendly rivalry between Theory and experiments... Both are needed. Personally I think the theory is more important but again both are needed...

You mean that the Hakka People of China (客家人) who are some of the greatest travelers, being Guest People in their own land, are also great scientists?

 

Hakka People of China can make a mean Orange Sauce for Chicken,

And the Hakka People also do a great stir fried ginger-beef dish...

 

 

But I would not say that just because they are Travelers, with no real place to call their Traditional Home, has helped them much to become great scientists, nor Nobel Laureates.  Although, you might say that cooking is a form of science, which it definitely IS.

 

Also, EVERYBODY knows, by now that:

 

The greatest breakthroughs in science, these days, are done in cooperation with many scientists working and sharing information, together.

GONE are the days of the Traditional Armchair Theorists, in favor of exchange of information and BIG FUNDING for BIG Projects, such as the collider built at considerable expense, by CERN, an INTERNATIONAL Effort.

 

 

 

 

[TravelerEastWest]

4 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

"You mean that the Hakka People of China (客家人) who are some of the greatest travelers, being Guest People in their own land, are also great scientists?"

 

4 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

 

 

 

 

 

I thought the moved mostly within China not too other countries?

 

There are some in Taiwan and Malaysia and a few here and there but didn't they move voluntarily from poverty not by force of war and discrimination?

 

So unless I am wrong and they were forced to move by war etc there is no similarity with the Jewish movements over history... Note - I am often wrong according to my teenagers - smiling...

[GammaGlobulin]

17 minutes ago, TravelerEastWest said:

 

I thought the moved mostly within China not too other countries?

 

There are some in Taiwan and Malaysia and a few here and there but didn't they move voluntarily from poverty not by force of war and discrimination?

 

So unless I am wrong and they were forced to move by war etc there is no similarity with the Jewish movements over history... Note - I am often wrong according to my teenagers - smiling...

For further information on the Guest People, please refer, at least as a starting point, to Wikipedia:

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_people

 

I lived among the enclave of Hakka in JingMei, Taiwan, for awhile.

I had a Hakka GF.

I know about the Hakka and money, and wealthy, as you mentioned in a previous comment.

 

I read Michener's description of the Hakka People in one of his books, when I was 14, maybe the book was either Hawaii, or the other one dealing with Fo' Dollah.

 

I am not saying you are wrong, by the way.

But, I will say that, just judging by the FLYNN EFFECT, your teens are probably smarter than you, and this may be due to better nutrition and better health, which might be due to better vaccines at an early age....  AND, for THIS, we can definitely thank people like Bill Gates.

 

THAT is Science.

 

SPEAKING of War:  I am not sure what effect the Warring States Period in China may have had upon the migration of the Hakka People.  Maybe none.

 

 

[Lacessit]

38 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

 

The greatest breakthroughs in science, these days, are done in cooperation with many scientists working and sharing information, together.

GONE are the days of the Traditional Armchair Theorists, in favor of exchange of information and BIG FUNDING for BIG Projects, such as the collider built at considerable expense, by CERN, an INTERNATIONAL Effort.

 

 

 

 

I dispute this proposition, on the basis of personal experience.

IMO scientific breakthroughs are made by individuals, not committees. The seminal thought or idea that forms the basis of a big project, if one looks closely enough, almost always comes from a single creative person. Said person may be part of a scientific group, drawing on their assembled information. The group gets the credit, sometimes the person with the flash of insight does not.

During my working life, I had about a dozen insights. Some were published, others were kept inside the organization either because they gave a competitive advantage, or were embarrassing. I called them my eureka moments. I certainly was not in an armchair, more often at a laboratory bench.

[GammaGlobulin]

23 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

I dispute this proposition, on the basis of personal experience.

IMO scientific breakthroughs are made by individuals, not committees. The seminal thought or idea that forms the basis of a big project, if one looks closely enough, almost always comes from a single creative person. Said person may be part of a scientific group, drawing on their assembled information. The group gets the credit, sometimes the person with the flash of insight does not.

During my working life, I had about a dozen insights. Some were published, others were kept inside the organization either because they gave a competitive advantage, or were embarrassing. I called them my eureka moments. I certainly was not in an armchair, more often at a laboratory bench.

It was not only you that called the Aha! moment a eureka moment. This is clearly an important effect which we study at school, or at least we studied this in some depth at my university...

 

 

Please see more about the history and etymology of this Greek word here at this Wikipedia link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_effect

 

 

 

[GammaGlobulin]

34 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

IMO scientific breakthroughs are made by individuals, not committees.

It now seems that all Natural Science is increasingly being driven by Physics, and this includes Biology and Chemistry.

 

Therefore, if one wishes to study Biology and Chemistry, one must have access to very expensive equipment.

This equipment must be provided by institutions which are supported by governments.

Funding is key, and this funding steers the direction of science.

 

I was also referring to the increasing need for INTERNATIONAL cooperation among scientists.

Benchwork by a single scientist, no matter how good, has very little impact on the progress of science.

 

In order to obtain funding, one must have a Super-Star scientist at the lead, in most cases, in order to dazzle the people in government that provide the funding.

 

Sometimes, even with a Super-Star like Elizabeth Holmes, things can still go out of kilter.

 

All organizations, even a scientific work group, requires good leadership, as you say.

Other scientists in academia follow the leader, just because the lead scientist has the money.

 

Again, these days, for a student to study Biology, she must first have an understanding of Physics.

Just check out a first-year university Biology textbook.

 

The study of biology at the molecular level, even from the early 1950s, required machines and researchers that could conduct experiments in X-ray diffraction, for example. How else would it have been possible to verify the  structure of what turned out to be a double helix? (That was way back, way back....in the early 1950s. These days, you cannot do important science without Big Funding, and Big Funding leads to Nobels....which brings us back to why cannot less-well-funded labs in poorer countries get as many Nobels as are granted to scientists from wealthier countries.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[GammaGlobulin]

50 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

I called them my eureka moments.

Have you given any thought to what might be done to increase the number of eureka moments for any given scientist, because scientists have been pondering this question for ages.

 

How might one increase the number of eureka moments per scientist, for example?

 

Richard Feynman discusses this very subject with Fred Hoyle, while walking in a park, in the interview I uploaded in the OP, for example.

 

 

[notmyself]

17 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

It was not only you that called the Aha! moment a eureka moment. This is clearly an important effect which we study at school, or at least we studied this in some depth at my university...

 

 

Please see more about the history and etymology of this Greek word here at this Wikipedia link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_effect

 

 

 

Yep. Often get that or something similar when studying a subject. Learn this and then that and on and on then suddenly the entire subject becomes as clear as day. 

[Lacessit]

1 hour ago, GammaGlobulin said:

Have you given any thought to what might be done to increase the number of eureka moments for any given scientist, because scientists have been pondering this question for ages.

 

How might one increase the number of eureka moments per scientist, for example?

 

Richard Feynman discusses this very subject with Fred Hoyle, while walking in a park, in the interview I uploaded in the OP, for example.

 

 

Good question. IMO being across a number of fields helps.

Most of my work was in the steel industry. However, I did find my previous experience in fields as diverse as detergents, polymers and glass gave me a considerable edge over fellow scientists who had worked solely in the steel industry, in narrow specialties.

IIRC it was Edison who said genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration.

[ozimoron]

9 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Good question. IMO being across a number of fields helps.

Most of my work was in the steel industry. However, I did find my previous experience in fields as diverse as detergents, polymers and glass gave me a considerable edge over fellow scientists who had worked solely in the steel industry, in narrow specialties.

IIRC it was Edison who said genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration.

I'm too lazy to be a genius. Among other reasons.

[GammaGlobulin]

39 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Good question. IMO being across a number of fields helps.

Most of my work was in the steel industry. However, I did find my previous experience in fields as diverse as detergents, polymers and glass gave me a considerable edge over fellow scientists who had worked solely in the steel industry, in narrow specialties.

IIRC it was Edison who said genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration.

I once visited Edison's home which he designed in Florida, complete with plants and spices from all over the world.

 

I was surprised to find that, when I visited his home, he had had the same idea as I, which was to locate his kitchen in a small outbuilding, separate from his main house.  I guess the Thai culture here has been ahead of Edison in his vision of the best location for a kitchen, and this might be why Thai people don't cook inside, that is...They don't like smelling their food before they eat it...

 

You can read all about Edison's Florida home here:  https://www.edisonfordwinterestates.org/about/historical-people-places/

 

In addition, it may be true what you mentioned, that Edison loved perspiration. Why else would the guy have chosen to go to such a hot and humid place as Florida, especially with all those midges.  He must have enjoyed being bitten by midges, as well.

 

 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

12 hours ago, JBChiangRai said:

I tend to align myself with Stephen Fry.

 

if there is a god then he’s an evil capricious god and I want nothing to do with him.  I would ask him to explain bone cancer in children.

 

I am amazed seemingly intelligent people cannot break free from the legacy shackles caused from the imprint of religion in their childhood.

 

It’s all dogma and nonsense.

You write as if you had a choice.

Either God exists, created the universe and cares about every living thing in it, in which case every living thing in it answers ( eventually ) to God, or God created the universe and left it to get on with it till the last sun dies, or there is no God and the universe just happened all by itself, from nothing, by magic.

 

I opt for the second version, and God is nature. You do realise that nature doesn't care an iota about humanity, don't you? To nature ( or Gaia ) ants are as important as humans, and if we are bad guests nature will remove us, and we have been very bad guests on planet Earth.

[thaibeachlovers]

10 hours ago, GammaGlobulin said:

I am not saying you are wrong, by the way.

But, I will say that, just judging by the FLYNN EFFECT, your teens are probably smarter than you, and this may be due to better nutrition and better health, which might be due to better vaccines at an early age....  AND, for THIS, we can definitely thank people like Bill Gates.

LOL. When I look at teenagers today I don't see any smarter than we were at that age, and as for Bill Gates, IMO he has reduced millions to walking zombies with their heads in a screen, and no common sense.

IMO we'd be better off had Gates never existed.

We even landed on the moon when they used slide rules, so do we really need to be able to see pornography or social media as easily as we do? Apparently porn is the most watched thing on the internet, and we all know how destructive social media is.

[thaibeachlovers]

13 hours ago, JensenZ said:

Choose your religion and lets all agree to disagree.

It amuses me greatly that in an age when many reject religion, they have chosen alternatives to believe in such as the "man made climate change theory", or social media, to which they are just as fanatic as any inquisitor.

[thaibeachlovers]

15 hours ago, ozimoron said:

You still can't / won't explain why each religion thinks theirs is real and the others not, much less say which one is real.

To explain that would require some understanding of psychology, and I doubt there are many psychologists on this forum.

However, if you think about why millions of people became fanatic followers of monsters like Stalin, Mao and Hitler and you may have some explanation as to why people, in general, need something to believe in.

[JensenZ]

59 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

LOL. When I look at teenagers today I don't see any smarter than we were at that age, and as for Bill Gates, IMO he has reduced millions to walking zombies with their heads in a screen, and no common sense.

IMO we'd be better off had Gates never existed.

We even landed on the moon when they used slide rules, so do we really need to be able to see pornography or social media as easily as we do? Apparently porn is the most watched thing on the internet, and we all know how destructive social media is.

I agree it's absolute nonsense that our teens are smarter than us. It has become public knowledge that in the USA, the land with the biggest intelligent population on Earth (according to them), a large percentage of kids at school can't read or do basic maths. Calculators didn't help. I've seen shop assitants in Thailand use a calculator to to multiply by 10 (can't remember the numbers exactly, but it was shocking). This is a high school graduate working in a 7Eleven. Apart from that 10x multiplication, they use calculators to do other extemely easy calculations - calculations that I find extremely easy, and my maths skills are probably just a bit above average in my age group of people who didn't have calculators at school. We used slide rules and log tables LOL. I think it's quite possible that excessive time on social media is rotting those young minds. They become more concerned about everyone else's lives than taking care of their own.

 

Look this up on Google:

 

Is there a literacy crisis in America?

According to The Nation's Report Card, 37% of children in the U.S. are reading below a basic level. And what “below basic” means is that kids in fourth grade, based on the most recent NAEP assessment, are functionally illiterate. Almost 70% of low-income fourth-grade students cannot read at a basic level.

 

 

[GammaGlobulin]

51 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

To explain that would require some understanding of psychology, and I doubt there are many psychologists on this forum.

However, if you think about why millions of people became fanatic followers of monsters like Stalin, Mao and Hitler and you may have some explanation as to why people, in general, need something to believe in.

As you say, in order to discuss the question you are responding to, it is best to begin several good Psych courses.  Most, if not all, of these topics are covered, including formation of beliefs, resistance to change in beliefs, even in the face of contradictory evidence, and how to create more persistent/resilient beliefs.  Madison Avenue has learned a lot from guys like Edward Bernays, for example....

 

 

Religious beliefs can easily be manipulated through Madison Avenue techniques.

So, in other words, people do not know why they believe in any specific religion or product...They just DO!

 

Anyway, all I can tell you is that all this stuff like shaping opinion, and also creating resilient beliefs, something of interest to Madison Avenue, is thoroughly covered in several good Psych courses.

 

I have done my best to forget what I learned at university, just because I am not really a Machiavellian kind of guy.

 

 

[GammaGlobulin]

22 minutes ago, JensenZ said:

I agree it's absolute nonsense that our teens are smarter than us. It has become public knowledge that in the USA, the land with the biggest intelligent population on Earth (according to them), a large percentage of kids at school can't read or do basic maths. Calculators didn't help. I've seen shop assitants in Thailand use a calculator to to multiply by 10 (can't remember the numbers exactly, but it was shocking). This is a high school graduate working in a 7Eleven. Apart from that 10x multiplication, they use calculators to do other extemely easy calculations - calculations that I find extremely easy, and my maths skills are probably just a bit above average in my age group of people who didn't have calculators at school. We used slide rules and log tables LOL. I think it's quite possible that excessive time on social media is rotting those young minds. They become more concerned about everyone else's lives than taking care of their own.

 

Look this up on Google:

 

Is there a literacy crisis in America?

According to The Nation's Report Card, 37% of children in the U.S. are reading below a basic level. And what “below basic” means is that kids in fourth grade, based on the most recent NAEP assessment, are functionally illiterate. Almost 70% of low-income fourth-grade students cannot read at a basic level.

 

 

Are you sure that you are not, again, mixing up the two different measures of intelligence, i.e. Crystallized Intelligence VS Fluid Intelligence?

 

Because, of course, I am speaking of Fluid Intelligence when I tell you that James Flynn's observation is CORRECT that Fluid Intelligence has been increasing by about 3 IQ points each decade.

 

 

[JensenZ]

1 hour ago, GammaGlobulin said:

Are you sure that you are not, again, mixing up the two different measures of intelligence, i.e. Crystallized Intelligence VS Fluid Intelligence?

 

Because, of course, I am speaking of Fluid Intelligence when I tell you that James Flynn's observation is CORRECT that Fluid Intelligence has been increasing by about 3 IQ points each decade.

 

 

I'm very sure I'm not mixing up different forms of intelligence. Rather than trying to blind everyone with science, I'm using the accepted dictionary definition. Let's call it "general intelligence" so there's no confusion. The type of intelligence that helps people to read and perform basic mathematical tasks.

 

As usual, you are quick to suggest that a theory is 100% correct. Just as you suggested that smart-people are ALL athiests, or that they are invarilably atheists. You leave no room for debate with your bombastic assertions.

 

The Flyn affect is still a matter for debate and research:

 

https://www.simplypsychology.org/flynn-effect.html

 

Is The Flynn Effect Reversing?

Quote

Some researchers have found evidence for a “negative Flynn Effect”, that is, that the Flynn Effect has actually begun to reverse (Dutton et al., 2016, as cited in Bratsberg & Rogeberg, 2018; Pietschnig & Voracek, 2015, as cited in Bratsberg & Rogeberg, 2018)

Numerous studies on the Flynn Effect in a variety of countries have provided support for this “negative Flynn Effect” (Dutton et al., 2016, as cited in Bratsberg & Rogeberg, 2018).

However, a 2014 Flynn Effect meta-analysis did not support the Flynn Effect reversing (Trahan et al., 2014).

There seems to be support for both arguments, which emphasizes the need for further research on the Flynn Effect to determine what is the true pattern of human IQ throughout history.

 

I have no problem with the theory, but only with your assertion that it is 100% correct. Let's not rush to conclusions.  

 

 

 

[JBChiangRai]

5 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

or there is no God and the universe just happened all by itself, from nothing, by magic.

 

I wouldn't use the word "magic", I prefer the word "science".  I reserve the word magic for illusions like parlour tricks and religion.

[mike_rad]

On 7/29/2023 at 2:25 PM, GammaGlobulin said:

If YOU consider Gelernter a "prominent scientists", then all meaningful discussion is OVER...Here is why......

 

 

Above image can be found at:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gelernter

 

 

No surprise there. Dissenters always come under fire when they speak out against powerful interests.  As that article says,

 

'Science never ceases to question. When a theory is taught as an unquestionable fact, it should be quite obvious that something is wrong. Today, science isn’t really science, and this is not only true for topics such as evolution, it’s true in many areas where science is used for an agenda by powerful and corrupt forces.

'Health sciences are a great example. As Bud Relman, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine said, “The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be the paid agents of the pharmaceutical industry. I think it’s disgraceful.” '
 

[mike_rad]

17 hours ago, TravelerEastWest said:

Jews are around 2/10ths of a percent of the worlds population yet 20% of the Nobel prize winners are Jewish. Why is that?

 

Mencken could be right:

 

"The Jewish theory that the Goyim envy the superior ability of the Jews is not borne out by the facts. Most Goyim, in fact, deny that the Jew is superior, and point in evidence to his failure to take the first prizes: he has to be content with the seconds. No Jewish composer has ever come within miles of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms; no Jew has ever challenged the top-flight painters of the world, and no Jewish scientist has equaled Newton, Darwin, Pasteur or Mendel. In the latter bracket such apparent exception as Ehrlich, Freud and Einstein are only apparent. Ehrlich, in fact, contributed less to biochemical fact than to biochemical theory, and most of his theory was dubious. Freud was nine-tenths quack, and there is sound reason for believing that even Einstein will not hold up: in the long run his curved space may be classed with the psychosomatic bumps of Gall and Spurzheim. But whether this inferiority of the Jew is real or only a delusion, it must be manifest that it is generally accepted. The Goy does not, in fact, believe that the Jew is better than the non-Jew; the most he will admit is that the Jew is smarter at achieving worldly success. But this he ascribes to sharp practices, not to superior ability."

 

 -- H. L. Mencken, Minority Report

 

 

[mike_rad]

7 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

 

Either God exists, created the universe and cares about every living thing in it, in which case every living thing in it answers ( eventually ) to God, or God created the universe and left it to get on with it till the last sun dies [...]

'The “Epicurean paradox” or “Riddle of Epicurus” is a version of the problem of evil.

'Lactantius attributes this trilemma to Epicurus in De Ira Dei:

 

“God,” he says, “either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able.” '

 

https://epicurus.today/the-epicurean-paradox/

[JBChiangRai]

3 minutes ago, mike_rad said:

“God either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able.”

 

 -- Lactantius

Or more likely, he is fictitious 

 

Able & unwilling makes him unworthy in my book.

 

Are Ra, Osiris & Isis any less likely than any other god?