 103.9 FM, WOZO Radio, Knoxville. Ladies and gentlemen, Digital Freethought Radio Hour. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio, 103.9 LP, FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is April 25th, 2021. And as usual, we have the wombat on the line with us. Hello, wombat. What's Scott eating? I must know. What's that? Let me eat some scrambled eggs, baby. All right, all right, all right. Scott also known as Doubtfires with us today. George Brooklyn is here. Hello. Hi. And Dred Pirate Higgs. Hello, Dred. Brooklyn Brown. Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faith, God's holy books and superstition. Wombat, what are we going to be talking about today? I think we're going to be talking about Mickey Mouse and... What? Yeah, like animals with fingernails. I think that's what answers the more questions. I'm not too sure, but we'll find out in this show. Before we get into it, I'll fill it up to our own Dred Pirate Higgs for our weekly invocation. All right. Well, here's a clue of who it's coming from. All right, our audience, for our listeners, it's a shirt that's like a Venn diagram. It has life, universe and everything underneath it. And in the middle, it says 42. It's a Hitchhiker's Guide call out, which is a good book. You should read it. I recommend it. It's an excellent book. So in keeping with the topic for today, imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, this is an interesting world I find myself in. An interesting whole I find myself in. It's me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact, it fits me staggeringly well. It must have been made for me. It must have been made to have me in it. This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as gradually the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be all right because this world was meant to have him in it. It was built to have him in it. So the moment he disappears, catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch for. Yeah. Douglas Adams. So good. Good job, man. That story stuck with me on a lot of levels because I love analogies, right? And you know, we were talking just yesterday about the idea of mind and body. And a lot of people describe themselves as like separate from their body. Like I'm a mind or I'm a personality that's just inhabiting this body. And how fortunate am I to be a human being among all the other animals? I could have been a blade of grass. I could have been a cat. I could have been an amoeba. But I got to be the apex animal on the planet in this time period. Wow, wonderful. And I always thought, how can I describe in a simple way that it's not so much that you were in a lobby and got to choose to be human and then push the human button when it was your turn to come out. There was a human being and the human has mental processes to keep itself sane and functional. And that's you. Right. You are your moral, your personality is a byproduct of your body, not the other way around. So it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing, humanity. Hey, I want to talk about that though. We were talking about Mickey Mouse, right? And Goofy and Donald Duck and all these animals that have like human parts. I don't understand anthropomorphism. I understand that it's a very big thing on the internet. I try to stay away from those websites. Dread Pirate, help me out. What's this anthropomorphic thing? Well, so I think we might be getting confused or conflating two things here. So anthropomorphism is not the same thing as the anthropic principle. Oh, OK. Talk to me. Talk to me. Well, the anthropic principle is sort of the position that, you know, with all the constants being appearing so fine tuned that the universe was actually kind of made for humans to perceive it. And if it was any other way, we wouldn't be able to. But constants mean physical constants. Yeah, like constants and physics, yes. Yeah. And there's a bunch of them. Give me an example. An example? Yeah. The charge of an electron or the strength of gravity. Yeah. It all seems to be finally tuned for the existence of humankind. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Or even the expansion of the universe in the earlier universe. That's what the anthropomorphic principle is. If it had been, yeah, exactly. If it had been, you know, one millionth of percent off of what it is, the universe would have collapsed and we wouldn't be here to talk about it. Well, I actually have a bizarre concept now because you're saying, and I've heard this before. So you're saying if gravity wasn't the rate at it would actually was. And if we weren't carbon-based life forms, but instead silicon-based life forms, you're saying all these variables that are quantitative that seem to be very, very exact weren't deliberately made. What are you talking about? And how does Mickey Mouse fall into all of this? Good point. Well, I've got it up here on Rational Wiki. OK. And so the quick definition here is the anthropic principle is an off-misunderstood philosophical proposition that has many variations. Two commonly cited variations are Carter's weak and strong anthropic principles. The weak anthropic principle states that humans live in an inherently unique part of the universe because humans require unique conditions to live and exist. The strong anthropic principle essentially states that our universe and its fundamental constants must exist at some point in the universe's history in such a way that it allows the creation of observers. In other words, in order for the universe to be observed, the universe must exist in a state that allows observers to exist. That sounds like one of those, what do you call it? Apologies? Apologizing for the fact that it's looking at very well. It does. It's kind of tautological, right? It's kind of a circular thing. It's basically God exists because the universe was made for us to exist in it because God exists in the universe that exists in it, therefore God exists. Perfect sense. Perfect sense. And if you're confused, that just means you got to open up your heart a little bit wider. You got to eat your Wheaties. I would like to get some other opinions on this. Scott, what do you think about the anthropomorphic principle? What do you call this thing? The Mickey Mouse principle? Can we just call it that? Anthropic. Anthropic principle. Scott, ideas, thoughts. Yeah. So what many Theists will argue is that the very reason we're here and we're talking about this is because the universe is at a very fine tuned state. And it's just really, it strikes them as very odd that the universe would just come to exist in just the right way. It could have existed in any other way. There's an infinite amount of different configurations that the universe could have existed. Of course, maybe life wouldn't be here. Definitely wouldn't be here. You can actually break that down that scientists have. Fine tuning isn't a religious concept. It's a scientific concept. It comes from science. It's called the fine tuning of the universe. But what theologians have done is they've kind of taken this route to say, well, if the universe is fine tuned, then this sort of points to a god. A tuner. A tuner, a fine tuner, because it could have been any other way. The question is, why is the universe this way that accounts for us being here and not those infinitely other ways? Right. And so you've got these other, the response to that has been, well, maybe we're in a multiverse. Maybe it's string theory. Oh my gosh. But then. Don't just say things. Right. So then the theologians will say, yeah, but those are just as religious and just as unfounded as the alternative. So they're saying that the most parsimonious answer would be God, because we're looking at something more simple than trying to extract all these infinite amount of universes. Right. And as much as I have an issue with string theory and as much as I have an issue with multiverse, right? People who misuse them as like a catchall term to answer everything else. God is like the most complex thing you can bring into a conversation as a catchall answer to everything. It is literally the most complex thing you can, card you can play is the most biggest unanswered, most assuming. Well, there's two things that I have on that. Occam's razor thing. There's two things that I have on that, I just said. There's two problems right here. Number one, it seems to me that if we live in a fine tune universe, that means that God must have been fine tuned. Who fine tuned God? Oh, no. Okay. Because now it seems like he's constrained to by the constants. Right. And then the argument kind of dwindles away kind of dissolves away. What if it was two gods? It wasn't it perfect that we just have one fine tuner? Right. And isn't that fine turning who made the one fine tuner? There you go. There you go. See? There's the Russian dolls again. It's the Russian dolls again, right? It's a super god. Yep. Yep. Russian dolls, exactly. And what's the second one, Scott? Well, that was it. There's that. God is constrained by fine tuning. So, you know, put it this way. Right. They say fine tuning is proof of the supernatural God, the fine tuner. Right. But it seems like this is more of an argument for naturalism because it would be supernatural if God allows life despite the universe not being fine tuned. That would be a miracle if there's life in the universe without nature being a certain way. But because nature is a certain way, it allows for life. That only points to naturalism. So does that make sense? No. I'm trying to follow on. I like the words you're saying. And I'm sure there's a point there that I can follow. Could you try again? Could you like, could you Chris like that again? So I got this from Sean Carroll's debate with William Lane Craig about fine tuning. Yeah. Yeah. So William Lane Craig says, the universe is fine tuned. This points to God. Okay. The fine tuner. And God is all powerful, all knowing, and that's why it's fine tuned. Got it. John Carroll says, in response to that, well, fine tuning only promotes naturalism, not supernaturalism. Because fine tuning is talking about laws of nature. Ah, okay. Well, supernatural doesn't need laws of nature. God doesn't have to abide by the laws of nature. He's a weird God. Right. If you work by magic, you don't need to do fine tuning. You can just say, I am a magic supernatural being. This exists now. Deal with it. You don't have to make little rules and variables. Yeah. God could have made us out of titanium to live in the interstellar space. Exactly. Or make us out of people's ribs. Right? Yes. Right. Or just magically make us out of people's ribs. There you go. Well, you know, something that kind of takes the wind out of the fine tuning argument is the fact that 99.999 followed by 20 zeros or 20 other nines is uninhabitable. Yeah. Most of the universe is uninhabitable. Not even if you think about on Earth, you know, 2,000 meters below sea level, 8,000 meters above sea level, your history. Yeah. So, you know, fine tuning, it doesn't really cut it. Larry, go for it. Yeah. They were talking about, you know, if the fine tuning constants were not exactly right, the universe would have collapsed. Well, there could have been a hundred billion other universes before this one that did collapse because they had the wrong fine tuning parameters. That's a good point. And then, you know, there's no observers in those universes because they didn't persist. We have one example. We have one. We have an end of one. We have one example that it did persist. And therefore we were able to evolve in it, but that doesn't mean that there weren't, you know, countless other ones before that. Multiverses. I'm also going to throw this out to you. I like to get George's opinion on this because it's not just that the 99.999 on end is uninhabitable. It's actively hostile to human life. Even if you were in that small fraction, you could have a neighbor you don't get along with. Isn't that right, George? You could have like a... You could have giant corporations trying to extract your information and stuff like that. Well, the problem is I do get along with the neighbor. You know? Okay, okay. That's the whole other thing. I would also say like you can be human being and be Jewish. And then you're like, oh, well now I'm back at square one again. Like what am I supposed to do? Like it's rough. Larry. And even if it was a fine tuner, I mean, what gets me is that a lot of religious people, believers, whatever, automatically jump to that fine tuner was their God. It could have been any God. It doesn't point to any particular God. It could even be a God that we've never had a God of the universe 16 times over. Creating universes left to night. We don't know. It just points to a deistic God. Or it could just point to a series of constants and variables that can be measured and studied by very objective tests that don't necessarily have to have... Yeah, but I was just saying even if it was a God, it doesn't mean it has to be any particular God. But a lot of people, beyond that, will point to like a spiritualistic science as the forces that are controlling their life. But it's like science doesn't even care about, like, have you looked at the universe? Science is a tool for us to use. It has no intention of keeping us alive. We can use it to best figure out how to live ourselves. But it's not here to guide us toward a better path. It's a tool for us to make use of to get to that path ourselves. And one of the unfortunate things about this principle that I don't like is it tends to overlook the work that's put into discovering these constants and variables and how we've made use of it. I can't tell you the number of times where I've seen like a pastor being like, I'm just so thankful for everything he's in a room that's incredibly immaculately well lit. And they are very careful with how they light mega churches. Like, there's make sure there's no cast or shadow underneath their eyes. They don't cast too big of a shadow. They have the diffusion going on. They have the echo speaking into mics you can't even see. It's all Bluetooth control. The room are perfectly sound design. Every single one of those scientific facets were made by a couple of engineers in a room overnight trying to figure out the best way to carve angles, best way to set up a wiring, best way to have lights. People worked at that and there's a history of work that went to each of those scientific things. So it's that when we flip the lights, which we don't thank God for that, we're like, but we ignore the fact that people put work into it. And so very easy to think, oh, I'm not going to call it an ignorant of the amount of effort that was put into crafting it as it is now. And it would highly humblest first be reckoned is a cognizant of that. What I'm hearing is that you're talking about a religious leader who is not being thankful for all the scientific work that's been done to make him superhuman to everybody else, you know. I mean, I want to mention a point of history here that, you know, in this conversation I've been thinking about aspects of my own life that intersect on what we're discussing and the thoughts kind of come and go. But the one thing I wanted to mention that I'm aware of has to do with Adolf Hitler and magnetic recording tape. The Nazis, the Germans anyway, scientists perfected magnetic recording during the 1930s with a certain electronic principle that made it all happen. And I won't get into that. It's too technical. But they made it possible to record on magnetic tape. And so what they did with that was they put Hitler on the air at all hours of day or night. They played recordings with him wide awake at two o'clock in the morning, just blasting away out of his mouth, you know. And so this made him seem superhuman. He could be up at two, three o'clock in the morning screaming his head off, you know. It made everybody relate to him without him having to relate with anybody. It made him essentially a celebrity of thought. And superhuman. There are parallels to this today. But anyway, sorry for that. So I mean, it's just that particular invention made it possible for him to do that. And for the I interviewed with a company that makes loudspeakers that are used in mega churches. And as you said, Tyrone, a tremendous amount of brilliant scientific work went into those loudspeakers, you know, the same speakers are used for rock concerts. Sure. They're extremely good. And so, yeah, I'm just relating to that. I've thought this myself from time to time. A lot of work goes in and we should just be more thankful to the people who made this because it'll better color the amount of collaborative effort to make the universe as we see it. The tools that we used to see and the and what we appreciate much more visible. Well, my neighbor, who I speak about from time to time. Oh, no, no, no. See, he went and had stents put in his arteries. And when it was over instead of the doctor. Well, I was thinking more like the degradation of science that has gone on for the last four years in this country. And the fact was that he did not go to his car mechanic to have the stents put in his arteries. He did not go to his pastor to have the stents put in his arteries. He went to a doctor. Cool. Yeah, you don't go to a pastor for stuff like that. You go to a doctor. Yeah, that's my point. Scott, you raise your hand. What's up? Yeah, so in response to that statement that, you know, science is kind of the empower and power of religionists who use technology like the internet or the church floor or the church building or whatever it is, the microphones, the thing, you know, science is sort of enabling Christianity and Christianity turns or any theism turns around and gives all praise to God rather than the scientists. And so that point has been made a lot of times, you know, and what I've found is that a lot of apologists now are trying to bring up the point that what wait a minute now, most scientists are Christians. All of this science that was done from Newton on up, they were Christians. Oh, why start from there? Why start from there? So many more scientists before that one white dude. Exactly. Exactly. They'll say, look, so when you try to say that, you know, science versus, you know, our Christian God, well, wait a minute, the same scientists, these same things are where science was created by Christians. How dare you try to pit us again? So, you know, it's just something I thought I bring up, but I think that that's kind of a ironic argument to make being that a lot of Christians used to burn scientists alive at the stake. It's an argument at popular, I believe. It's just, hey, a lot of people believe this. Therefore, it's true. That's not necessarily the case. Yeah, I was going to say, it's like Oz, right? The state of churches these days is really like Oz behind the curtain. Are you saying Pogs? Oz, Oz, the great powerful Wizard of Oz. Oh, Oz, Oz, Oz, Oz, Oz. Behind the curtain. Yeah. Don't pay attention to that man behind the curtain sort of thing. And that's what they do in these big major churches nowadays. But what I thought was a bit of a peeve I have is I watched a show called May Day, which is about air crashes and air accidents and whatnot. And I saw the one recently about Sully, who landed his plane in the Hudson River. And survivors saying, thank God. Thank God I made it. I have a purpose. God wants me to live on for some purpose. Yeah, so we need the church of Sully. Yeah, the church of Sully. I want to throw this before we head out to a break because I think it's a good final point to rest on, at least before we come back to the subject. But when a pastor is like, hey, I have good news. He's only talking to his flock. He's only talking to his people. But science is for literally everybody. Once a discovery is made, there's no the section of people. There's no segregation. It's for everybody, which means people can misuse it and people do misuse it. But science, like I said, doesn't have the goal of saying these people first, these people second. It is literally as open and objective for everybody if they're willing to put in the word. So even if you are subject to like misinformation by people that you trust and care about, you have the means to figure out how to parse their truth and facts on your own because science is available to you too, if you're listening to this. Larry, final thoughts before we head out to the break. What do you got? Oh, just go back to the science was created by Christians. The science that supported Christianity was okay. The science that didn't support Christianity, like the Earth-centered universe or the Sun-centered universe and that type of thing. You could kill the scientists. You could house imprison them. You could banish their works and burn their books. It took 500 years for Catholic Church to apologize for what was it? Galileo's works and imprisoning him. It wasn't the religion that made them apologize for it. It was the science and popular opinion, find the kitchen up with the science. So we have to be aware that Christianity didn't do much for science other than Robert Stamping it when they got around to approving it. Exactly. Now, when these preachers like there was a monk who actually came up with the idea, I think of using peas of evolution, you know, say, one of our people had discovered evolution. No, he didn't discover the correct tool that evolution uses. And he wasn't doing religion when he found that principle. He was doing science while he was a religious person. You're talking about Mandel, right? Yes. We just need to keep that in mind. Were they doing religion when they made those discoveries or were they doing science? Right. And how many discoveries did religion, per se, actually bring forward? Right. Yeah, I'm ready for a break. Yeah, it's like something is right or wrong depending on the source. Right. Did you say Mandel? Yeah. That's a Jewish name, man. He was the guy that did the work on peas. Oh, awesome. Awesome. Okay, you ready for a break? Let's do it. Okay, this is the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on W-O-Z-O Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. And we'll be right back after this short break. 103.9 FM, W-O-Z-O Radio, Knoxville. Hello, and welcome back to the second half of the Digital Freethought Radio Hour. I'm Dr. Five, and we're on W-O-Z-O Radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. This is the morning of Sunday, April 25th, 2021. Now, let's talk about our Atheist Society of Knoxville, or ASK. Founded in 2002, we're in our 19th year. ASK has over a thousand members, and we have weekly Zoom meetings during this COVID outbreak. You can find us online on Facebook, meetup.com, or Knoxville, or Google for that matter. Just do your search for KnoxvilleAtheist.org, and you'll be able to find us. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to meet up and search for Atheist Group in your town. Don't find one. Start! That's right. One better way we want to pick up. We apparently got a bunch of listener comments, and so we may have to dedicate an entire episode to this for the next show, because I didn't get a chance to read all of them. Sometimes you don't know if it's just a guy being like, hey, that was a good thing, or a bunch of people debating at the same time, too. But let's try to dedicate next show to just some comments we'll catch up on them. Thank you for them. Feel free to leave more comments in the show. Just leave them at our YouTube channels, or reach out to us at the links that we'll provide at the end of the show, and we are happy for them. Thank you very much for it. But I'm going to put some bones. It's time to pick some bones. My problem with bone picking is people, so we were talking about anthro-principle. Anthropic. Anthropic principle, right? And Scott had brought up people using concepts as like stop gaps for ignorance, like string theory or multiverse, and people just throw them out, and then Christians throwing out God, which tends to be like one of the biggest stop gaps that they all are. But I have my pepies on God. You guys are fairly aware of them, but I would like to address some of these other ones, like multiverse. My idea of what people mean when they say multiverse is like, and this falls into the anthropic principle, is like, well, I could have chosen to get Pepsi or Coca-Cola, but because I chose Coca-Cola, I inadvertently made an entirely new universe where there's another version of me who asked Coca-Cola. I'm like, how do you just decided to make soda, make an entirely new universe? Like, well, you know, I just make universes with every choice I make, every human being does it. I'm like, how does that, how is that a thing? I'm so, so fulfilling to say that, but isn't that like so saccharine that you can obviously tell it's a lie? Like, isn't that just straight up playing to a person's ego? Like, yeah, I cut my hair today. I made a new universe. I went with the goatee today. I farted in class. I made another universe. It was a whole universe where I didn't fart in class. Who knows? Multiverse. That's how it works, guys. Scott, what do you think? Sean Carroll would have your head for that statement. That's a little universe where he wouldn't have his head. Yeah, I feel like he goes to the puddle idea of like, this universe was made for me. I'm just making universes left and right. It's like, no, dude. What are you talking about? Like, yeah. And see, that's the thing. Sean Carroll has, I don't think he expected as much blowback from other scientists and other philosophers that say the same exact thing you're saying here. And he's like, wait a minute, why are you guys saying this to me? Like, he doesn't get it. Like he, like he honestly doesn't understand, like, look, I've got valid mathematics, is peer reviewed. There's no contradictions in my math on it. What's the problem? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And he's saying, you know, I'm not saying it's true. I'm just saying it's valid. It's another model that should be treated with as much respect. But so many people do not respect because it's like he said, it's kind of comes off kind of ego, kind of anthropomorphic or it's a hard word to say, Dredd. I'm saying it comes off as a puddle in a puddle shape hole, basically. That's right. It's like, I think what you're trying to say, you're trying to play the theologian game with a lot of scientific word salad. And it just doesn't, it's something doesn't seem right about it. But exactly. And it's the same about intelligent design, right? You know, it's trying to put a scientific spin on a supernatural right idea, right? Yeah, it's kind of physics. Larry, what do you I have? I have a hard time with the new age people using terms like higher vibration or quantum quantum is or automatically putting what is an intelligence in any energy they happen to encounter. Boom, there you go. I hate that. Yeah, that pepsis me agency. No, and it's hard to describe in sign language. I know I had a conversation about pepsis in sign language two weeks ago, and I don't have enough words to express small things upset me. But Larry, what do you think you have to be a multiverse? How many universes have you made today? You went to get tea over the rake. For example, there was a universe where you did it. Now we got these two spiraling universes where you might be an evangelical Christian by now and this other one where you're just possibly possible because I was born a Christian into a Christian family. You were born in a Christian family. You were not born. There's a universe where I didn't meet him in college and therefore I stayed in my religion. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And now we would have a thousand more Christians. No, I think it's a nice idea. I don't know if I go with that, but it sounds pretty far-fetched. It's like what you were saying about a valid argument versus a true argument. It can be valid, but we just may not know the flaw in it. Right. Whatever the answer is going to be, I kind of feel like it's going to sound far-fetched. Let's just put it that way because if it wasn't, we would have probably already had the answer. So that's not part of my thinking is that if it sounds far-fetched because that'd be kind of like an argument from personal incredulity, like for some, evolution is far-fetched to them. That's just because it's personally incredible for them to believe it. It doesn't mean it's not true. Right. So I think that part of it, I kind of learned how to separate that, but the problem for me is that you've got, that's just one interpretation. There's a lot of models on the table and you can't just arbitrarily pick one over the other because it feels good to you or it kind of sounds like a great stopgap argument. They're all stopgap arguments. They're all models that attempt to do the same thing. And I think that at the end of the day, people who conclude one over the other, it just depends on their philosophical commitments. And for me, I'm more of an agnostic. I kind of just say, look, I don't know which one, if any of them are right. I'm going to break it down. Objective truth may never be reached by any model because, like I said, models and universal truth or objective truths, they aren't the same thing. So you'll get close. But at best, you can do is get the difference to be nominal, which is like, yeah, there's a difference, but it's not that important for what we're trying to get done. So what really matters in science as far as model and models terms, it's utility. How useful is this model? And how much work do I have to put into this model to get an answer that's nominally close to objective truth? And I find like, there are a lot of different models, but there's very, very rare exceptions for when you have all of the models being as useful. Typically, there's just one use very, very useful model that we can continue to improve on. And that's what we have now. So like if I wanted to measure what time it was today, I can use a sundial. Like that gives me like one means of determining time. I could look at wax falling out of like a bowl and having it like offset a weight. That's how they did it in greet times. Or I can use the digital clock, which is really amazing, which is great to control digital clock. Sometimes it's wrong. Sometimes it's not necessarily accurate. Sometimes it's a little bit off. Could be off by a couple of Adam, you know, firing isotopes. And sometimes it's a rare occasion that we actually find utility out of some of these crazy ideas. Like one of them was there's this, it came out of relativity was this block universe theory is called event ontology. Basically, the crazy idea that the universe is not comprised of things, as we might intuitively think, like things and causation, which is kind of the, which ironically is the basis of understanding a lot of scientific concepts. This thing causes that thing and that thing causes this thing. But fundamentally, that's not true from event ontology. And a lot of scientists were like, well, that's just crazy talk. But then they Could you describe it in a nutshell? So it's kind of like things are mainly coordinates. It's all based on relations, not causation. Those are two different things that it's kind of deep to get into for the show. But basically, it's about relations and events. Those are the only real things, not things themselves, which is kind of a weird, really weird, unintuitive idea. But then, you know, then the thing was, well, how would you prove something like that's really the truth? And they say, well, we make testable novel predictions. And part of the predictions that came out of that is time dilation. If this is true, then time dilation is a thing. And now we have GPS based on event ontology. And so correction, correction, correction, because you can come up. So two models can point to the same thing, right? Like I could, and, and, and even if one model points to something doesn't mean that the other model couldn't do the exact same thing. And I feel like I developed GPS through, through causational science, or at least much more traditional means of science. And if this new model does point to the same thing too, I'm totally fine with it. But what do you mean by GPS? GPS, the global positioning. And the thing about it is in science, it's whoever makes the prediction first, who is who wins. Like, no, if someone comes with a model after post-taught to explain it, that doesn't count. No, I understand. No, absolutely. I understand it doesn't count. No, no, no, absolutely not. A lot of people came up with evolution before Darwin did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He came up with a, with a method of explaining how it worked. And even he got it, and even he was wrong until we figured out what genes were and what punctuated equilibrio was and, and germ theory, like these were, right? The theory, I'm talking about the prediction, the predictions. Like if, if a model, like let's say I say, um, if gravity is true, I'm going to predict that if I drop this pin, it's going to fall. If I'm the first one, and I say this thing is called gravity, and I have a whole explanation for how it works. And they said, well, prove it. And then I drop the pin and it works. But then someone else later says, ah, but maybe it happens because fairies actually come in invisible fairies and they push it down. And that's what causes the pin to fall to the ground. So our model also explains it. Well, that would be like a post hoc explanation, which doesn't count as evidence. That's from what I understand. I might be wrong though, but that's, that's what I understand it to be. We don't have to get, we don't have to get too far into it. What I really just was, as my takeaway is, different models can point to the same thing. But what we would prefer is one model that explains everything. And right now we have a lot of different models in science. And the umbrella of science contains many, many different models. And we try to explain big forces and small forces. And we have so many different formulas and so many different things. And the goal of science, like the day when science ends, is when there's one formula that explains everything. It's like the grand universal theorem. We may never get there. It's a pie in the sky sort of thing. But until then, we know what that would look like. Even if it's very complicated, it's a very useful singular model that's reliable for everything. Until then though, we work with the next best useful system, which is what's the most useful model to explain why guitar strings make noise or why gravity works. And we will go to the areas of expertise and figure out what are the best models that you guys are using to explain these phenomena. And if someone says fairies, we're like, what else can fairies explain? Basically, everything is like, oh, I'm very skeptical about it. We don't have that yet. We will look a little bit past what else that model explains. If they're going to explain one thing and something that we can't test or measure, that's a problem. But if we can't explain everything, I would just say this before we have to dread. If we can't explain everything with a particular model that we have right now, like if it's limited, that's okay, because there's room in science for I don't know, and it's undefined. And I think that's something that as a culture, we need to get used to that there's a lot of unknowns and even in science, even with the best models that we have out right now. And that's okay. It means we can still continue to improve this process of model that we have. Fred? Yeah, so a really good example, of course, is the two competing models of how the solar system worked. Per furikin and Galilean, right? So those two models were in competition until the one that better explained the phenomenon went out. And that was the process of scientific discovery. And the evidence to support it was the predictions it made. And it seems like with a model that can make more predictions than another, that can be verified and repeated over and over and over, that counts as better evidence than one that doesn't do that. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, same thing with Eddington and Einstein, the shift there, the bending of light from Mercury around the sun that was predicted by Einstein, but was only proved eventually through an experiment by Eddington. I love that story because he was out there to disprove the craziness of that theory, like, this is just ridiculous. And I'll prove it. And he went out there and got an exact opposite. That's a terrible person. He's rolling. In more culturally relevant or in more recent terms, there was an argument on, believe it or not, is intelligence heredically, genetically transferred between parents to kids. And that was a thing people still believe it up to now. People are still arguing for that up to now. But the thing is, like, the idea is if you have two intelligent people and they have a baby, that baby's going to be intelligent too. But I think what we are overlooking is that there's a lot of social factors that lead towards intelligence. It's like the same thing as saying, if you have a rich mom and dad, you're going to have a rich baby. It's like, yeah, but that's not genetic. That's just upbringing. Maybe they make different choices in life. Maybe they have the access to different things. Maybe they just inherit their money. Just inherit the money. That's not genetic. Maybe it could be, they don't inherit learning disabilities. Maybe they're less inclined to get mental disorders that might exacerbate things as they try to learn things. But we, science says, science says on the matter, we don't know, because there's no gene we can put on a petri dish and say, oh, this is the intelligence team. At this point, it's just a thing that science isn't sure of, but there's no grounding to make the argument for. And people are using that as basis to say, aha, there is possibility that it could be genetically transferred, therefore it is. And it's like, ooh, that's not what science is saying, though. It makes me upset. It's like, you can't prove what you're at. You can't prove for or against it. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's proof positive for. It just means this isn't a conclusive result until you can actually put the genes that you're talking about on a petri dish. And we can actually do some measurements with organisms after we disable them or turn them on or off and stuff like that. Until then, you're just saying words. So that means I'm right, right? It's like, no. Yeah, I feel like a lot of things. I feel like a lot of things in science that really make me upset is just the idea that most people don't realize that it's not a magical wand that makes them right for the things that they strongly believe and want to be true. It is just a tool that has its limitations. And the more you work with it, the more you realize, oh man, there's so many blank spots that we have not illuminated yet, which is exciting if you are wanting to get into science, but it's also illustrative of the fact that it's not as powerful enough to make the supernatural real, real. Exactly. Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, I think there's a problem in definitions like what does supernatural even mean? Yeah, I gotta distinguish. Oh, let's leave it to George. George, I haven't heard from you in a while. What do you think the supernatural even is? Don't say I have no idea. I have no idea. The supernatural is, well, I will define it by what it isn't. Okay. Okay. It isn't science. Very true. It isn't natural. Super. Super. And I mean, sometimes you have to, sometimes when you're defining something, you have to look at what it isn't and go from there, and this is one. Morals and ethics, they'll say morals and ethics are not science. No, no, don't twist the word. Don't twist the word. It's not strictly measured with incredibly well-defined variables in the field of ethics and morals. Or alternatively, what George Brown's alluding to can actually be systematically measured and is tied to the laws of logic and reason. Like everything we measure in science is, in part, accessible through reasonable tools of observation. And otherwise, it's just an non-observable facet of life. So would you say moral claims can be scientifically validated? Yeah, I don't have a moral button detector that I can push a button and be like, yeah, that was more correct to run. I have to use a different thought process and that's up to subjectivity at that point. Hey, what's up, Layers? I think we need to make a decision on whether philosophy is a science or not, because we're talking about morality and ideas and the type of thing that's usually... There are a lot of different kinds of philosophy. I got my PhD, which is a degree in philosophy, but it is very much an aspect of putting a lot of thought into something. And I feel like that's what the nature of philosophy is. So if you put a lot of thought into it, that's philosophy. The etymology of that word is actually lover of knowledge. Philosopher is a lover of knowledge. So that's why you could be a PhD in all kinds of different subjects, because that's what it's defined as, is a lover of knowledge. One scientist named Lawrence Kraus says he hates philosophy. And he says, philosophy has no need for philosophy. Philosophy is just dumb. He hangs out with Daniel Bennett. So they need to take curriculum out of school. Isn't there a philosophy of science, though? There is a science. There is a philosophy of science. Yeah, yeah. I mean, in a lot of ways, what we do in science is philosophy, because science, again, is just a tool. It's just a box of tools, and you have to put it on the table and use philosophy to apply them appropriately to solve problems, if that's what your intentions are. So in moral... Well put, well put. Thank you, thank you. In moral, in more ideas of moral, you are using philosophy because you're looking for tools that aren't necessarily as equipable as scientific tools. Like I can't cut. I can't detect. I can't use spectroscopy. I can't weigh. I have to really reason out processes with mental models and talk to people and understand what's your consent? What do you want to have? What are our mutual goals and what can we do to improve our mutual benefit of a situation that may not necessarily have a clean, perfect answer to make everybody happy? That is a philosophy in its own right. And it comes out to murky answers sometimes. But what is cool about science, math, and philosophy is they have very, very different standards of what I call the clarity of truths. Math can say, this is three. This is four, because those terms are so incredibly well-defined. We know what a three is. We know what a four is. Science can say, I built a model to suggest that this is three. And we are very, very conclusive that this is three. We can even make a lot. A lot might change in the future, but I'm saying a lot because it's more than a theory. We can demonstrate it, but it might change in the future. But we are very, very certain that that is the case, right? It's a little less certain, but it's still pretty close to it. And I feel like in philosophy, it's more of like, here's just this idea that we've come to terms with as the best way to behave if certain events happen. And whether or not it's right or wrong, isn't really the question. It's more of just like, here's the thought process that we're using. And it's up to us to decide if we consent into the system of governance or not. So it establishes like a little framework. Yes. It's like a societal contract in a way. And they have very, very different goals. And so because of that, it's good that you have different philosophies that are answering different subjects and different things, and they can all borrow from each other. And I think that's the beauty of life. But I think what the biggest question in the world is, is what is that giant pile of stuff behind you, Scott, is that you drop a bunch of fingernail clippings behind you? What's going on? I've got bronchitis this weekend, popped up on medication. So are those just the pile of pills that he dropped over? Yeah, just brought some puff drops and some pills. Don't mix them up. Don't mix them up. Larry, we're getting close to the end of the show. I want to get some final thoughts from you. I'm thinking the idea of philosophies and they're being more than one. Science, math, philosophy, those are like the main ones I can think of right now. Do you think there are other important ones that we should be aware of? Yes. Nothing comes to mind. What's interesting about philosophy is back a long time ago, like back during the Greek times and before that, they actually had the view that to solve problems, physical problems of the world, all you really had to do was just think about it. They would think that thought processes could find the answer on any particular problem, like how the earth goes around the sun or vice versa, or the distance around the earth. If they thought about it, they could discern it. The thing about it is they gave credence to supernatural beings, and that's where even Plato went off on that road. Plato! See, I told you we'd get back to the characters. Good old Plato. And just because it hasn't been said today, Sam Harris. I'd like to touch on what George was saying earlier in the show when he had made the mention of that magnetic strip tape and Adel Filtler. We very much construct the world that we live in through our observations and what we decide to take in as information. And that could be a bad thing in some cases. If we were fed bad information, it could be a good thing if we ideally have good information. And what science does is help to separate the two. It's a very, very useful tool. It's like a little flipper. It's like, that's true. That's not true. That's true. That's not true. I don't know yet. I'm not putting it in the compile. It doesn't mean it's false. It's just its own special basket. And we'll parse that when we have a better system and we can go through it again. But in the event that you may not feel as happy or feel as calm about the state of the world and stuff like that, you have access to a brilliant method of parsing true and falsehoods that's available to you because science is available to everybody. But also, you have control of, to an extent, of coloring the world that you do live in with useful, healthy, and not as exploitatively dramatic, if I can put it in a nice way, information from news media that's not really news media. That's more interested in selling dog food commercials than actually forming you. So be careful what you digest. Have a good mental diet. And that's a good way to stay mentally sound and healthy, I think. And science is a very, very apt tool for that. I have a three-step rule. If someone's wearing a funny hat, or if they tell you don't eat bacon, and then I haven't come up with the third one yet, but it probably involves something with where they start asking you for money. Those people typically aren't interested in informing you in the best way that you could be informed. So be aware of that. Funny hat, no bacon. Wait for the money, ask. All right, that's it. Dred, final thoughts? I would like to encourage people, if they're so inclined, maybe pick up some David Hume. He was a Scottish philosopher of the 19th century, or 18th century, sorry, best known for his philosophical empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism. And every day I've been reading this previous on human understanding. So I go to the local pub and I have a glass of wine, and that's where I get my Hume in. Get it? My Hume in? Cool. Scott, last words. What do you got? Well, tonight I'm going to actually be debating the fine-tuning argument with a Christian on a YouTube channel called James is Tired Tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. So I thought this would be a good subject to kind of talk about while I'm getting prepped up for it, get my mind on it, get focused in on it. Cool. And I appreciate all the input. Very, very nice. Very nice and good luck to you. I hope you have a good, enjoyable chat, in my opinion. Oh, yes, sir. George, final thoughts before we head out? I don't have any this week. Fair enough, fair enough, fair enough. We hope we can see you next week, George. What's up? I just wanted to mention, because I know I forgot last time, was to mention my YouTube channel, MinePirate, that we do this on Sunday morning, 8 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, and you can check us out live. And he's almost close to 100 subscribers, so please subscribe to this channel. Yeah, please subscribe. That's M-I-N-D. It's not Standard Time. P-Y-R-A-T. That's correct. Thank you. All right. Larry, why don't you close this out? I didn't get a chance to close. I'm sorry. Just real quick. Hey, I did some car stuff. I fixed my car. I had this whole problem with a leaky coolant water outlet for my coolant. It was spring, hot mist everywhere. I got the part on Amazon for like 20 bucks. I put it in myself. I just did a test drive today. Everything was good. Thank God, my car now magically starts working again. That's what solved everything. Larry, go ahead and pick us up. Okay. I just like to... You haven't said that in a long while. Yeah. I'd like to recommend that everybody look up Robert G. Ingersoll. He's very popular, 19th century skeptic. He was called the great agnostic of his time, and he has a lot of free text on the internet. A lot of his works is available, and he's a very prolific writer. My own content is found at digitalfreethought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button for our radio show archives, atheist songs, and many articles on the subject of atheism. You can find my YouTube channel by searching for Doubter Five or Digital Freethought Radio. My book is called Atheism, What's It All About, and it's available on Amazon. And if you have a question for the show, you can send them by email to AskAnAtheist at KnoxvilleAtheist.org, and we'll answer them on future shows. If you're having trouble relieving religious beliefs behind, having emotional or even physical problems with people when you're trying to relieve religion, you can go to recoveringfromreligion.org and get help. If you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe. Oh, we haven't mentioned this in a while. If you'd like to see how Jesus might have done his miracles or magic tricks, if you want to look at them that way, explained by Stage Magic, then read the free book by Dale Newman, 30 pieces of silver plus expenses, which can be found at HowJesusDidIt.com. It's free, and you can read it online. This has been the Digital Freethought Radio Hour. Remember, everybody is going to somebody else's hell. Time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it. Enjoy your life. We'll see you next Wednesday. Say bye, everybody.