Balancing Faith and Science

Some reading in the area of logic might be in order.The fallacy of the argument from incredulity is exactly what you are doing. If something is unknown it does not prove anything else.Not being able to imagine, uncover or construct a solution of one kind to a given problem does not support any other solution until you have exhausted a very large range of possibilities. It certainly does not add any support whatsoever for an solution without any other independent, objective evidence of it's own.Saying that I don't know how Smith murdered someone does not give me the slightist support for saying that Jones did. It only weakens my case against Smith.If I can say under the known circumstances that I can not figure out how Smith did it my case against Jones is not strengthened at all. It does weaken my case against Smith however.If I can show that no one can suggest any plausible way that Smith did the murder I weaken the case against Smith a great deal more. I still have no evidence what so ever to accuse Jones.If by some set of evidence it is somewhat plausible that one of Smith or Jones HAD to have committed the murder then and only then does any weakening of the case against Smith support the case against Jones. However, I need significant evidence to implicat Jones first.If any one can come up with any plausible idea of how Smith might have committed the murder then my case against Jones is weakened considerably since I am basically arguing from incredulity and that is a very weak argument indeed.However (and this is an important point) we are NOT discussing a legal case. We are discussing logic! The argument from incredulity is from a logical point of view fallacious. In other words, while we might give it a small amount of weight in a courtroom, in logic it carries no weight at all.ABE From a logical point of view if the argument is just one based on incredulity (in this case disbelief that a mechanism could have done something without any other support than that AND using that as support for another mechanism) then it IS logically fallacious.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 07-08-2005 01:47 PMThis message has been edited by AdminJar, 07-08-2005 12:56 PM

ABE - Jones == God. I thought the whole point was that Lewis arrived at a "reasoned" approach to god. end ABEEven if no other option is suggested (which is not the case here) the arugment that a thing is difficult to explain is only a weakening. It is also a weakening only in a reasoned (but nor formally "logical") approach to trying to determine an explanation. It is NOT a weakening in a LOGICAL sense. There are two different things being mixed up here.Since it is possible to construct a so-called "just so story" about the evolution of the issue under discussion the incredulity arguement is weakened considerably. That is "no way!" is shot to shit if there is any "way" at all.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 07-08-2005 02:59 PM