Ragnarok

Yes, Duggles' alter ego strikes a blow for advanced cretootionist mathematics.

I'll bet this guy is so smart he can finally explain to me how 4.5*10^9 yrs = 6000 yrs in the, um... 36.5 dimensional Biblical manifold of, um....

Oh fuck it.

Late_Cretaceous

If you think LB has got a short circuit in his head just check out Martin Luther's bizarre delusions about the laws of thermodynamics in this thread:
<a href="http://www.christianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=d1754ddeb55abc05e2f1eddcff906942& threadid=12158" target="_blank">http://www.christianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=d1754ddeb55abc05e2f1eddcff906942& threadid=12158</a>

I didn't know it was ok for fundies to do hard drugs
As bugs bunny would say, "what a maroon"

Gooch's dad

Yeah, Tollhouse, Louis is a real dimbulb, that's for sure.

I have actually enjoyed watching him equivocate and squirm. I know a lot of other people read those boards, and the lurkers have to wonder what he is doing.

Sure, some of them, like a recent poster there, just say 'God said it and I believe it'. But I know there are others that have to see that Louis is a very poor witness for the creationist cause.

Is Jerry Smith one of our gang?

Douglas J. Bender

Unbelievable. Such mathematical geniuses parading as juvenile critics as I have never seen before. Why can't you people be a bit more mature, and discerning and intelligent? Louis Booth made apparently a typo, or an error of haste, and admitted he did - you act like a school of piranha attacking at the first smell of blood.

By the way, ardipithecus (in the original post at the thread linked to by the original poster here) made an obvious and blundering error in his claim regarding "Case 1", and it should be obvious to anyone with a high school algebra level of mathematical training. The error does not even really require someone to have an algebra background in order to see that it is an error, actually. A laughably and embarassingly ridiculous error, really. Anyone care to guess at what it is? His entire claim is based on this error, thus his claim is completely faulty. (And, I would post over there, but I only have a "free" email account, which they do not allow people to register using.)

In Christ,

Douglas

[ May 08, 2002: Message edited by: Douglas J. Bender ]</p>

Bill Snedden

Well, he reversed the sign of the exponent of "e" in his initial transformation. I vaguely remember something about changing the signs of exponents when going from one side to the other, but can't remember if it applies here. Anyway, it doesn't really affect his algebra as he never attempts to remove the exponent.

However, it seems that he was attempting to bring "e^-kt" from the right side of the equation to the left by division, but ended up showing the term multiplied on the left side instead of in the denominator of a fraction (shouldn't it be P[now]/e^-kt ?).

Then, in the fourth step it looks like he makes another error when he attempts to transform P[now]e^kt - P[now] to P[now](e^kt - 1).

It's been a while since I had algebra, but neither of these moves looks "legal" to me.

Is that what you meant, Douglas?

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Douglas J. Bender

Bill,


It does, and what he did in "moving" the "e" to the other side is valid.

Negative exponents are the same as dividing by the positive exponent, essentially. So "P[Now]/e^-kt" equals "(e^kt)P[Now]", which is what he had, if I remember correctly. So, he made no error in this.

No error there either, since "P[Now]" is just a number (with units), and can be divided through "P[Now]e^kt - P[Now]" to get "PNow(e^kt - 1)".

All those moves are "legal", and they aren't what I was referring to. And I would hope you can discern how that post of yours would have been slammed by those here, Bill, if you had been a Creationist - I can imagine, if you had been a Creationist, that there'd immediately be a thread started titled, "My Gawd, another Cretinist idiot!" (not to imply that I think of you as an "idiot", mind you), devoted to your post above. You'd have the piranhas eating you alive. Note, on the other hand, that I have treated you with respect, because you posted respectfully.

In Christ,

Douglas

[ May 08, 2002: Message edited by: Douglas J. Bender ]</p>

TollHouse

Douglas:



Had Bill done the following...

1) Provided false mathematical mechanincs.
2) Condescendingly told us all that we "obviously haven't taken higher level math".
3) Continue to claim he can prove us all wrong but doesn't have the time to do so.

...then you can bet the farm that he'd be taken to task whether he was creationist or not.

But then again, Bill didn't do all that, and even though his mathematics isn't superior he was able to word his post in such a way that didn't make him sound like such an asshole (i.e. he openly admits that it's been a while since he studied math).

Do you understand the difference?

[ May 08, 2002: Message edited by: TollHouse ]</p>

Douglas J. Bender

Tollhouse,


So? That's never stopped those here from ridiculing Creationists who are arguing their points, and happen to make some errors such as Bill made. Not once that I can recall. Tell me, Tollhouse: Do you understand that there is a perfect parallel here between anonymousj and Bill? Do you understand that, IF anonymousj is mistaken in some of his logic, this is exactly parallel to Bill being mistaken about mathematics? Anonymousj, just like Bill in his above post, has been perfectly respectful in what he has said. And don't try to argue that the difference is that anonymousj claims to teach logic, because the ridiculing of his posts began much sooner than his making that claim, if I recall correctly.

Yes, and I didn't read all of what LouisBooth wrote, so if he made some antagonizing remarks, then that would indeed tend to "call down upon" him some ridicule when he makes a mistake. But that is not relevant to my point, Tollhouse.

By the way, do you happen to have any clue what ardipithecus' error is? Any at all?


In Christ,

Douglas

[ May 08, 2002: Message edited by: Douglas J. Bender ]</p>

Douglas J. Bender

Now that's funny.

In Christ,

Douglas

Koyaanisqatsi

Well, if I may, since I am involved on that thread?

The difference being, that no one that I can recall was necessarily ridiculing anonymousj as we were demonstrating his logic to be fallacious, which he simply, obstinately denied over and over and over again.

Is it "ridiculing" to point out the ridiculous?

I don't consider it necessarily "ridicule," though, to call into question one's qualifications as a teacher of logic when that person repeatedly gets the most basic elements of logic incorrect over and over and over again, nor would I consider it unjustified if it were ridicule, since this person is actively teaching others his own fallacious thinking with denial aforethought!

The man either does not know what he's talking about, or, worse (as I and others suspect) knows so well what he's talking about that he's deliberately and deceitfully manipulating terminology to advance a demonstrably biased agenda, making his declaration that he is a teacher of logic to be all the more frightening.

When a syllogism is demonstrated to be unsound, that's the end of the debate as any alleged logic teacher should know first and foremost. The fact that he refused to acknowledge this basic tenet and, worse, tried to controvert the intended meaning of the term "sound" in order to win a pointless and trivial semantics hair-splitting contest (that still did not render his "proof" sound) in my book, deserves what you consider to be ridicule.

The man's logic was ridiculed, not the man, until the man demonstrated himself to be a deserving target of ridicule, IMO.

But then I'm not as pious as are you, Douglas; nor am I afraid of words. Let's face it, I'm a crass, no holds barred realist, completely disinterested in the fragile egos of others, but at least I admit it. I'm not necessarily proud of it, but I admit it.

As a result, however, I don't hide behind such contrivances in order to avoid dealing with actual issues by throwing the focus off of what is primary so that everyone addresses what is (ultimately) ancillary.

Ridicule or no, the man's argument does not stand and that is what was primary.