Quote Originally Posted by Thor View Post
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I'm sorry, Butler, but you're wrong on every point. When you set out to educate other people on science, the first thing to do is actually having a clue what you're talking about, so you don't make a fool of yourself. The defining qualities of science are not "discovery and truth seeking". Man discovered things millions of years before he knew science, and other practices, like religion, also endeavor to seek the truth. Although science is motivated by the search for truth, the defining quality of science is the gathering of knowledge, consisting of theories and facts, by employing the scientific method. An objective, absolute truth is not knowable, neither through science nor any other way. However, what sets science apart from non-science, is that it works; scientific theories have greater predictive power than any alternative.

Since it is painfully clear that you don't have even the most elementary knowledge about science, you are not competent to judge the quality of any scientific methodology. Contrary to what you say, argument and debate are essential to the scientific process. In particular, what you're calling "cherrypicking" is actually a scientific principle called falsification. Given an hypothesis like "vivid dreams only occur in REM sleep", I only need to point out counterexamples, and that hypothesis is falsified. Decades worth of research has produced plenty of these counterexamples, so the claim that vivid dreams occur only in REM sleep has been very thoroughly falsified by now.
I was only trying to point out that you may need to reexamine your motives. I was trying to politely say you should brush the chip off your shoulder, and admit when you are wrong. Arguing something just to prove you are right is not science. That is ego. It does not make you a scientist, just a blowhard. The scientific method is not about proving a point. Any decent scientist is happy to admit their hypothesis is wrong, because it means they have learned something new.

Your tirade only proves my point even more. You seem to be more concerned with your own ego than with any productive discussion.