What Do You Believe Even If You Can't Prove It? 2353
An anonymous reader writes "That's what online magazine The Edge - the World Question Center asked over 120 scientists, futurists, and other interesting minds. Their answers are sometimes short and to the point (Bruce Sterling: 'We're in for climatic mayhem'), often long and involved; they cover everything from the existence of God to the nature of black holes. What do you believe, even though you can't prove it?"
Someday (Score:5, Funny)
That's easy (Score:5, Funny)
The usual.... (Score:3, Funny)
WMD (Score:5, Funny)
G.W. Bush
I believe I will have another martini, please. (Score:5, Funny)
Logic works? (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, go ahead and prove it, but you'll still be taking it for granted, or you wouldn't bother with a proof.
Re:I believe (Score:1, Funny)
I believe that children are our future... (Score:3, Funny)
What Bruce Sterling should have said: (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Someday (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I believe (Score:5, Funny)
So do I, but there seems to be darned little of it in the software that I see.
-dB
Christ (Score:5, Funny)
I believe... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:That's easy (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Someday (Score:5, Funny)
>
> [nine-times] ep... you have your proof... no longer counts.
"Oh dear", says doublem, "I hadn't thought of that", and promptly vanishes in a fog of (-1, Overrated) moderation.
"Oh, that was easy", says nine-times, and for an encore, goes on to prove that (+1, Funny) is indistinguishable from (-1, Troll), and gets himself confirmed dead at the next Netcraft parody post.
Re:I believe (Score:4, Funny)
If you mean intelligent design, as in purposeful creation by programmers, analysts and end-users: Mod - Funny
Re:What comes around, goes around (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Someday (Score:1, Funny)
Do not believe everything you think.
Re:What comes around, goes around (Score:5, Funny)
The Elf Conspiracy (Score:4, Funny)
Even now, the elves are working on igniting a great volcano under yellostone park!
Re:Someday (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
Women can't fake orgasms perfectly (Score:5, Funny)
So... go run some experiments with this new data.
Re:Someday (Score:5, Funny)
I'm going to heaven, you're going to hell (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Women can't fake orgasms perfectly (Score:5, Funny)
Re:WMD (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Women can't fake orgasms perfectly (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm...very hard to observe signs such as these with the lights down low, and your behind her doggy style her head is either buried in the pillow, or bouncing off the headboard.
At that point in time....I'm probably NOT going to roll her over and shine a flashlight in her face to check out her flush or pupils...
Besides...she might start talking, and I'd miss something on tv...
Re:A Kind and Loving God. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Everything (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Me personally (Score:5, Funny)
Despite all evidence to the contrary... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:That's easy (Score:3, Funny)
My ex-wife used headaches, fatique, all kinds of illnesses to avoid sex.
During the divorce trial her medical records and examinations confirmed that her claims were contradictory (in legalese, she had been lying).
During our separation she had three affairs behind my back, even booking flights to them multiple times. That's a pretty active sex life for someone with lots of health problems.
So it was all one big lie. As you can imagine, I am extremely skeptical when a woman tells me she has a headache.
Re:AIDS is man made (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Women can't fake orgasms perfectly (Score:5, Funny)
Spoken like a true nerd.
Re:Christ (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I believe that children are our future... (Score:2, Funny)
Since you came along.
You sexy thing, you.
Re:Women can't fake orgasms perfectly (Score:5, Funny)
And if they're only at 0.9 s intervals, what then?
Mob psychology (Score:5, Funny)
I can't prove that, but I do fervently believe that
-WS
I believe in... (Score:2, Funny)
Halleluja!
The Joke (Score:5, Funny)
A: Because they think men care.
Re:Women can't fake orgasms perfectly (Score:3, Funny)
No, because you're likely to put their eye out with your calipers measuring her pupils for dilation during intercourse.
Re:That's easy (Score:3, Funny)
Fine. In the long tradition of "real science", I will assign the task of providing experimental data to the nearest grad student. As soon as she gets home. Repeatedly.
--
Evan "Although she's going for a PhD in Chemistry, I doubt she'll dislike this assignment"
Re:Someday (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Someday (Score:2, Funny)
Big Bang Cosmology? Isn't that like when Homer made that makeup gun?
http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~elmer/simpsons/homer/m akeupgun.jpg [redbrick.dcu.ie]
Re:Women can't fake orgasms perfectly (Score:2, Funny)
>
>And if they're only at 0.9 s intervals, what then?
She's overclocked?
Re:Someday (Score:2, Funny)
No, that was Big Bang Cosmetology. Not to be confused with Big Bang Cometology, i.e. when Bart discovered the comet that threatened to destroy Springfield.
Re:Women can't fake orgasms perfectly (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Someday (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The arrogance of religion (Score:3, Funny)
The speaker started out talking about how there's this difference of opinion among scholars regarding how old the world is, and that "some people" say that, if you look at the biblical account of six days for the creation of the universe, the "days" are just metaphors for some periods of time that were significant to God, and not literal 24-hour periods that Man knows as "days." He continued to say that this line of thinking leads people to say that the dinosaurs could have lived for millions of years on a God-created Earth, and that they lived and died within the "day" described in the bible where God populated the Earth with animals.
I was just settling in, looking forward to an insightful discussion that had the opportunity to create some bridges with my (non Christian) beliefs on this subject. This would please my father-in-law, and we might have a better understanding of one another. But then, like a hammer, this guy brings out the statement, "But none of it's true!"
WTF?? I asked myself, since no one else would've listened.
The guy went into full rant mode, prattling on about how God created the dinosaur bones in the state we found them and buried them where we found them so we would have something to wonder about when we found them. The universe, he said, was created in exactly six days, meaning 24-hour periods, just like the bible says. Question not the word of God!!
Well, after sitting through the rest of this flood of rubbish, I asked my father-in-law what he thought of the whole thing. "Oh, I think he's right on." Now, I know he doesn't really think that way, but he was caught up in the reverie of the whole thing, mezmerized by a charlatan. The seminar probably warmed his heart for weeks. Many years later, I still won't discuss the topic with him. We have something of an armed truce where religious notions are concerned.
People seem to find it easy to use emphatically-delivered, easy to understand ideas to model their life on. I personally think that the universe is somewhat more complex than that, and like to apply my somewhat limited brain power to thinking about it. Sometimes, though, you run across gems of simplicity that are basic truths. The idea is to know how to identify them when you see them, I think.
Cheers.
JD
Slashdot (Score:3, Funny)
I am an Primate. (Score:1, Funny)
Anonymous Coward: I am an Primate. [pandorabots.com]
goombah99: are you sure you are not a machine?
Anonymous Coward: I am an Primate.. Really.