Misunderstanding Empiricism

None of the portion I quoted represents my position, especially the paragraph where you specifically mentioned my name. That paragraph said: Once again (this is verbatim from my previous message):Thank you for this detailed misstatement of my position.The issue is and always has been the gross error of granting equal validity to conclusions arrived at through scientific study versus those arrived at through anecdotal and/or casual observations. Both approaches employ empiricism, but experience has demonstrated over and over and over again that scientific approaches lead to increased knowledge and progress, while anecdotal approaches remain mired in the same misunderstandings for decades, even centuries.PurpleDawn, and also LindaLou, just cannot believe that people getting together and sharing their experiences with one another do not often lead to valid and useful conclusions, that in fact the opposite is the case, they most often lead to wrong conclusions. Were this not the case then the world would not have had to await the development of scientific approaches before the rate of progress exploded.--Percy

That's very odd that it's the only explanation you can think of, because I just provided the proper explanation, and the context was the same back in Message 33. PurpleDawn was in essence saying that she was justified in giving greater weight to the anecdotal evidence she understands than to the scientific evidence she doesn't understand. I was telling her in Message 33 that those who have no aptitude for science but insist on attempting to understand the science anyway have set themselves a very tough task. PurpleDawn's mistake was to conclude that just because she doesn't understand the science that she's therefore free to disregard it and go by the anecdotal evidence she understands. By giving the greater weight to the worst approaches, anecdotal approaches, she's bound to reach erroneous conclusions. And this is born out by the evidence of her views, being against vaccines, for example, and citing as evidence the websites of psychics.Anyway, here's the problem in a nutshell. You said this: I definitely never said anything like this, it doesn't reflect what I believe, and I politely request that you stop repeating this mischaracterization of my views. If you want to explore my views with me that's one thing, but if you just want to repeatedly declare misrepresentations of my views that's quite another. I know what I believe, and telling me that I believe things I definitely do not is just absurd. Your Message 1 began with a number of misunderstandings of what had been said in the other thread, but there's no reason to seek symmetry and end with them, too.As long as we're on the topic of your misunderstandings, I may as well mention another: Science includes the requirement of replication. A scientific model accepted after a period of replication of the experiments/observations supporting it would never be considered falsified by "a single instance of counter evidence." If, for example, a human fossil were found in the Permian, then a) the tests verifying this would have to be replicated; and b) more instances would have to be identified. The mountains and mountains of scientific research that support theories that hold this to be impossible could not be overturned by a single piece of evidence, no matter how inexplicable.--Percy

Uh, no. We disagreed about whether tentativity had its origins in empiricism. Yes, but she was dissembling. You seem to be letting the distress she obviously felt imbue her position with a consistency and validity it did not have. I remind you again, she cited psychic websites to support her position. What more need be said about her bias toward quack sources and against scientific sources? One moment she'd be saying, "I am not more skeptical about scientific sources than I am of naturopathic sources," then the next moment she'd be saying, "I think if studies were done they'd support the naturopathic position, and by the way, aren't scientific studies biased by their source of funding?" (I'm paraphrasing, of course) What do you mean by "we"? PurpleDawn was alone. Your prior participation in this thread ended at Message 98, more than two weeks ago. You gave PurpleDawn the impression that she was somewhere near the right track and then left her on her own. Good luck finding someplace where I said or implied that "knowledge is either science or not-science", or that only scientific knowledge can be trusted.What I am saying and have been saying all along is that anecdotal approaches to gathering knowledge are far inferior to scientific ones, and that in any area appropriate for scientific study the scientific approach will yield far better answers a vast majority of the time. Both anecdotal and scientific approaches employ empiricism, but science raises empiricism to a fine art.--Percy

Hi JavaMan,I originally intended to reply to the last paragraph of your post but didn't have time, so I'm getting to it this morning: I understand what you're saying in principle. You and I can agree on the principle while disagreeing on how best to express it, but PurpleDawn and LindaLou have only a cloudy notion of this principle, and so when you say that it takes just a "a single instance of counter evidence" to overturn a theory, PurpleDawn looks at McGarey's 92 cases and LindaLou looks at her scads of anecdotal data and they then conclude that there's plenty enough evidence to indicate that castor oil packs work or to overturn any studies indicating that vaccines and antidepressants are safe.Obviously there is something wrong with PurpleDawn's and LindaLou's understanding of the scientific process, because when they attempt to think scientifically they arrive at conclusions that are often contrary to very strong scientific evidence.It is my position that PurpleDawn and LindaLou do not understand that as much as science is a way of looking at the world, it is also a set of methods for studying the world. These methods raise empiricism to a high art, and evidence gathered in this manner is far superior to the less formal more anecdotal approaches favored by PD and LL. My objection has been to their giving equal weight, indeed ever greater weight, to anecdotal evidence over scientific evidence, and I think it explains their tendency to arrive at erroneous conclusions.--Percy

Your question is couched in somewhat absolute terms. How about if you instead asked if I might ever be skeptical of the scientific consensus. In that case the answer is yes, of course.But I've been taking a comparative stance, and in the context of recent discussions it would be better to ask is if I might ever be more skeptical of the scientific consensus than I am of anecdotal evidence, and the answer is no, and that's because I understand just how poor anecdotal evidence is. As I said a few posts ago, if this were not the case then it wouldn't have taken the advent of the scientific method for scientific progress to explode. I'm not objecting to her questioning medical science. I'm objecting to her giving greater weight to quacks than to science. She's directing her primary energies at questioning science while giving quacks a free ride. It isn't a question of judgement but of sheer perversity.--Percy

This thread's about empiricsim.--Percy

I think Buz is drawing the thread off-topic.--Percy