BEHOLD.
Gracious...
Gliders and hot air balloons are not airplanes.
; Nothing you've said has been in any way accurate...This is why I don't like to have these discussions on this board.
Some of you become so obstinate that you'll assert things like its wrong to say that hot air balloons are not airplanes.
I stand corrected. You in fact did say one thing that was accurate. Gliders and airballoons are in fact not airplanes. Therefore everything else you said must be valid. Well done.
**golfclap**
We can't discuss the level of accuracy of anything else I said when you are so eager, fervent, in tossing everything out that disagrees with you without any consideration on your part.
Gliders and hot air balloons are not airplanes.
; Nothing you've said has been in any way accurate...This is why I don't like to have these discussions on this board.
Some of you become so obstinate that you'll assert things like its wrong to say that hot air balloons are not airplanes.
I stand corrected. You in fact did say one thing that was accurate. Gliders and airballoons are in fact not airplanes. Therefore everything else you said must be valid. Well done.
**golfclap**
How I feel about your statements are independent of their accuracy, or lack thereof in this case.
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Being able to actually build an airplane was an act of faith.
It absolutely was not. It was the judicious application of science and reason to an unknown: the exact OPPOSITE of faith.
The evidence from the wind tunnel suggested that powered flight was possible. Making a reasonable conclusion from the data even if you're not 100% sure is NOT a valid definition of faith. Its not what faith means, and you're deriding the entire process by describing it with the same word that lets you "justify" making stuff up without or in direct contradiction to the evidence. Faith has a narrower meaning than any conclusion. Not all conclusions are equal, trying to treat them as such is ridiculous.
Not all conclusions are equal, trying to treat them as such is ridiculous.
..and yet completely necessary to the "atheism is just another religion" narative.
As for whether or not that particular kind of faith is -religious- faith, since none of you are able to explain the difference between that kind of faith and religious faith, its pointless to stress such a distinction.
Once you stretch the definition of "faith" to mean "believe something may be possible based on a preponderance of empirical evidence, but still espouse some healthy doubts" you've redefined it to a point where it's meaningless in this discussion, where we are attempting to contrast it with doubt and the scientific method.
There were scientific principles which suggested (suggested, not demanded) that such a thing was possible, but there are a lot of things which scientific principles suggest are possible, but have never been done.
Right. Which is why they attempted a series of experiments. Each with varying levels of success. After each attempt they reexamined what they knew, including new data, to adjust their model. But there was a preponderance of evidence that it was possible to fly: birds fly. If you ascribe the following thought pattern as faith, then you're either ignorant of the basic dictionary definition or being disingenuous (I rather imagine the latter, having some experience with you previously on the boards): "well, we know that birds can fly, and we know that hot air balloons can fly and those are big heavy objects, and we know that these various flying machine models can fly going back to ancient china, I wonder if it's possible for a large machine to fly on the same principles. Let's build one and find out."
That's the scientific method.
You're going to have to show that anything the Wright brothers have done was done on faith, rather than just continually assert it. BNW has done his due diligence in evincing the opposite, so you'll have to somehow show their own words were also inaccurate.
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There was no evidence at all, let alone a 'preponderance of evidence'.
This isn't just wrong its willful ignorance.
They tested the model airplanes in the wind tunnel. They knew what shapes would give them X amount of lift/surface area at given speeds. If that x is greater than the weight of the aircraft and the rider you get flight.
The definition of 'science' is NOT 'anything possible'. The fact that building airplanes was possible (a fact we only knew in hindsight, by the way) does not mean that it was done scientifically.
The fact that it was done scientifically means it was done scientifically
If you want to talk about faith as a means of inventing human flight Eilmer of Malmesbury makes a better study than the Wright Brothers, but I'll bet the Wrights were educated enough to have heard of Da Vinci's flying machine.
I guess I'm adding my voice to the chorus pointing out that the scientific method exists between faith and certainty, not at either end of that scale.
If you want to talk about faith as a means of inventing human flight Eilmer of Malmesbury makes a better study than the Wright Brothers, but I'll bet the Wrights were educated enough to have heard of Da Vinci's flying machine.
+1 for the flying medieval monk link.
That's not true.. If that x is greater than the weight of the aircraft and the rider you get flight.
LUKE I AM YOUR FATHER.
oh.. wait..
Deny it all you want, thems the facts. Can you explain how its not true?
There are many critical factors which emerge with scale. To name one of them, strength requirements and strength potential of building materials (particularly in regards to buffeting forces).
There is an enormous difference between "We may be missing something in our calculations" and "I have faith it will fly!" . You're refusing to see any distinction between ANY level of uncertainty and nothing but faith.
In between is an enormous world of difference, including science. I would be interested in what definition of faith you're using, because i doubt you could separate it from from any other conclusion.
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See Lil. It's not just me.
Bignorsewolf,
Save yourself some time and just run head first into a wall. It'll be more productive. Just saying.
If you want to talk about faith as a means of inventing human flight Eilmer of Malmesbury makes a better study than the Wright Brothers, but I'll bet the Wrights were educated enough to have heard of Da Vinci's flying machine.+1 for the flying medieval monk link.
I thought it was nuns that fly...
. You're refusing to see any distinction between ANY level of uncertainty and nothing but faith.In between is an enormous world of difference, including science. I would be interested in what definition of faith you're using, because i doubt you could separate it from from any other conclusion.
You are using a definition for 'faith' that I'm not familiar with. By the dictionary definition, faith is a belief in something without proof. So, believing something when there is no proof (ie. when there is uncertainty whether that thing is actually true) requires faith.
I don't know where you got your definition. You didn't get it from the dictionary, so where?
Your problem is that your idea of proof lies in epistemic nihlism, and the only reason for that is precisely so you don't have to concede the field of reason to science. You're redefining proof as absolute proof.
faith is a belief in something without proof
proof is evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth.
As proven earlier the write brothers DID have good evidence that their ideas of human flight were true.
LT, do you have some sort of letter or statement from the Wright brothers to back up your claim?
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It's about faith, Irontruth :P
LT, do you have some sort of letter or statement from the Wright brothers to back up your claim?What claim? That they'd never seen an airplane before they created one?
You made a claim, that faith was involved in their work. Do you actually have a source for this? Something that they wrote, said, or that someone who knew them said about them?
Everything I'm seeing online seems to point to them using the scientific methods in their work. They requested and received documents from the Smithsonian, they acquired large numbers of scientific journals, were friends with several engineers, etc. They worked very hard for several years to achieve 120 minutes of heavier than air flight. To me that sounds less like faith, and more like dedication.
What evidence do you have that they were working on faith and not compiling evidence that supported their theories?
Also, heavier than air flight has been around for almost 210 million years. Airplanes didn't exist, but birds certain did. Birds are proof that heavier than air flight is possible. BTW, the Wright brothers also studied birds.
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I am so glad to see that my warning about getting caught up in semantics went completely unheeded.
It doesn't matter what faith is, nor does it matter if the Wright Bros. had any. That's a stupid conversation.
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Radar? What does that have to do with anything?
I am so glad to see that my warning about getting caught up in semantics went completely unheeded.
It doesn't matter what faith is, nor does it matter if the Wright Bros. had any. That's a stupid conversation.
Since when do people actually read the posts they're responding to?
Seriously.
LT picked a metaphor, that metaphor wasn't good enough for some. Fifty posts bickering about the fitness of metaphor.
Net progress on the original, already-futile topic of discussion: 0%
That's still only your conjecture and not any direct quote from the Wright brothers that they were acting on faith.The conjecture, on my part, is that they'd seen no working model of a powered flight vehicle which could take off and land under its own power before they created one.
If that conjecture is false (for example, they'd seen some long lost prototype created by someone else which pre-existed their Kitty Hawke flight), then shift my comments over to that person who designed that prototype.
I have never before typed this sentence that I am typing now, neither have I seen it ever before. Did I create it with faith or the experience and knowledge I have acquired over my life time?
Your conjecture is about the methods the Wright brothers used to do their work. Either it is just your interpretation of things, or you have evidence to support your claim.
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Da Vinci's flying machine and glider? Not to mention their wind tunnel models.I'm not aware of Da Vinci having created a working airplane. Did he create a radar system, too?
Huh? Radar? WTF?
It doesn't matter if the Wright brothers knew about previous experiments in heavier then air flight. They used their wind tunnel and ten years experimentation with unpowered gliders to determine that powered flight was possible and design their airplane.
This entire discussion is fast becoming absurd. It does not matter if we are getting details of the invention of airplanes wrong. Us possibly being wrong does not make you right . The Wright brothers did not need any faith. They could trust in the actual data they had accumulated to know that their airplane would fly.
Also Radar is irrelevant even to this largely irrelevant discussion. Powered, heavier-than-air flight existed for upwards of 40 years before radar. What is your point, because at this point I'm 85% certain you are just trolling.
Ok bad analogy is bad analogy. No need to crucify him for it, no pun intended.
I think the point is they didn't with know 100% certainty that the flier would fly. They trusted that their calculations were correct because math is pretty consistent, and the observable data from tests told them they were on the right track. If this doesn't fit your definition of faith, then say so, and drop it.
The trouble here is that people are more interested in proving LT wrong than in simply disagreeing with what he had to say.
I don't actually care whether the Wright Bros. built their plane in the shape of a cross and powered it on ground up bibles (it seems the former is somewhat true though)...
What was his original assertion?
Faith is firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Hope is desire.
I hope for peace. When I take _action_ which I intend will create peace, despite all rational evidence that such peace is impossible and, perhaps most clearly, when my actions are dangerous to me, that's faith.
Yeah. Okay.
I might contest that faith requires a lack of evidence (since I haven't seen a definition that I've referenced myself that includes that), but otherwise it's a nice thought. Which has no bearing whatsoever on the topic, but we were already off topic.
You guys want to keep going on about the airplane dudes?
Net progress on the original, already-futile topic of discussion: 0%No one posts to advance discussion, merely to satisfy their own ego.
My ego demands that I call this whole enterprise foolish, while, of course, participating.
Net progress on the original, already-futile topic of discussion: 0%No one posts to advance discussion, merely to satisfy their own ego.
Not true. Sometimes I ask questions that I'd like to be answered.
But not often.
Da Vinci's flying machine and glider? Not to mention their wind tunnel models.I'm not aware of Da Vinci having created a working airplane. Did he create a radar system, too?Huh? Radar? WTF?
It doesn't matter if the Wright brothers knew about previous experiments in heavier then air flight. They used their wind tunnel and ten years experimentation with unpowered gliders to determine that powered flight was possible and design their airplane.
This entire discussion is fast becoming absurd. It does not matter if we are getting details of the invention of airplanes wrong. Us possibly being wrong does not make you right . The Wright brothers did not need any faith. They could trust in the actual data they had accumulated to know that their airplane would fly.
Also Radar is irrelevant even to this largely irrelevant discussion. Powered, heavier-than-air flight existed for upwards of 40 years before radar. What is your point, because at this point I'm 85% certain you are just trolling.
I'm not trolling. The poster who brought up Da Vinci's non-existent airplane as evidence of the existence of airplanes before the Wright brothers probably is, though.
That was me who brought up Da Vinci's non-functional flying machine. (Except that it's not exactly non-functional; rather humans don't have the muscles required to power it.)
My point in introducing it was that if the Wrights looked at it and said, "Well, we know that won't work, let's try to figure out why not," they're using the scientific process, not faith, be it religious or the regular kind.
No one posts to advance discussion, merely to satisfy their own ego.
I require a more exclusive audience to satisfy my ego.