|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
Thread ▼ Details |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: The Right Way to Debunk | |||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
LindaLou writes: You don't seem to want to lay out your cards about what you personally believe could be beyond that, if anything, and I don't blame you; if you did admit here that you think there might be something beyond, then the resident pseudo-skeptics would be trying to shred you up. Not only am I apparently insulting, now I'm crafty. Could you please just address the topic and leave me out of this?
But I don't mind telling you what I believe. We already know what you believe, because you repeat what you believe over and over again. What you don't do is address much of anything in the replies to you. For instance, there's the internal logical contradiction in your position, which you once again fail to address, so I ask again: If there are aspects to reality that are beyond detection by our senses, how do you propose to detect them? It would also address the topic if you described what you think the best approaches to debunking are.
Why would people who work within a large self-perpetuating system making a lot of money, not be biased in its interests? Why would people who work within a large self-perpetuating system like alternative medicine making a lot of money and not constrained by actual research funding or the FDA, not be biased in its interests? Human beings and all their frailties are a common denominator, LindaLou, it factors out. The difference between traditional and alternative medicine is that one has a scientific foundation and most of the other does not.
You're beginning to sound like Russ, Percy: "Know yourself." People seem to toss this out when they are frustrated that someone else doesn't agree with their point of view. People from both sides toss this out at you because you don't listen or respond to what people say. Since you're unresponsive to external feedback, any recognition must come from within. --Percy
|
|||||||||||||||||||
RAZD Member (Idle past 1436 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Hey Linda, does it usually get this quiet over at the Russ Tanner Emporium for Herbal Cures and Evolution Bashing? Or is massive cognitive dissonance causing sever avoidance behavior?
Heh. Started a new thread on age ... Enjoy. we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Percy writes: Notice that my definition said "directly or indirectly". Things that are real have the power to affect us through our senses. Whether directly or indirectly, you are (I assume) limiting things to 5 sense involvement. What is real, in other words, is what involves the 5 senses: directly or indirectly. This is issued as if a truth statement. Would you acknowledge that it is best described as a philosophical statement?
That blind people's eyes can't perceive light doesn't mean light isn't part of reality for them. Certainly photocells still work for blind people, and a spectrometer rigged to print braille or to speak could tell them the color of things. We shouldn't confuse "bleeper of pitch X" (which goes off whenever RED enters a blind persons room) with the blind person detecting the quantity RED. What they are detecting is what someone else has told them is quantity RED. Not RED itself. 2.5D is only representitive of 3D
The key question for you is that if there are portions of reality that our senses can't detect, then how do you detect them? A person can detect only that which they have the senses to detect. If they have 4 senses (as in a blind person) then the 5th quantity(RED) they will not detect. If they have but 5 senses then not the 6th quantity. If 6th then not the 7th etc. What is real is not limited to what a person can detect. This is where your philosophy errs in suggesting to tell truth (I wouldn't be too quick in trying to force parallels about a 4th being able to apply science to strain to perceive the 5th - whereas the 5th cannot do so to strain to perceive the 6th (so say the 6ths). There is nothing that says the 6th need be approached this way.)
What I said was pretty clear, but I can rephrase it for you. Science is the best way we have by far for establishing what is most likely consistent with or representative of reality. OK. Sorry for being snippy. The basic point remains. There is this suggestion that science somehow determines the boundaries of reality - rather than "science comments upon what it can comment upon". (aside: I'd go so far as to agree that what science comments upon forms part of reality. But I would have to call that reality a mere subset of the bigger picture - the extent of which I can only guess at)
Then start a new thread. This thread is about the best way to debunk, which I believe is to seek evidence of a claimed phenomenon to see how well the claims stand up against reality. I understand the threads goal. And I have no issue with it. My issue is with your assumption of higher ground. If you suggested/implied/hinted that: "...claims that stand up against a materialistic and naturalistic philosophical take on reality" then I would have no issue with you. But this is not the case. Take this:
But you and LindaLou keep making vague statements like this without ever telling us how you're going to detect anything that your senses can't detect. As long as you continue to avoid addressing what appears to everyone else as a very basic logical contradiction, it's a pretty safe assumption you're wrong. I haven't read LindaLou to comment. The issue is not me demonstrating my case but you explaining yours. You suggest (in terms that render it a-claim-by-any-other-name) the extent of reality. It is yours to demonstrate that that is the extent. This of course you cannot do. Anymore that any other claimant of any other extent can do. LindaLou for example. If you are happy that reality can exist beyond 5th sense then you might say so - rather than strongly imply it is not the case. This might be a bridge to far so why not agnosticism? Why cast "probably" and "likely" around like so much Dawkinsian confetti. There is no foundation for those statements other that assuming the assumptions on which they are based are actually true. And you don't make truth statements. You said so yourself.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Iano, I can't even tell what topic you're addressing. My position is that the best way to debunk something is to examine the evidence and see how well it corresponds to reality. Evidence is what we gather through our senses, either directly, or indirectly through instrumentation. Since everything we know about the real world arrives through our senses, if there are aspects of reality that we cannot sense, then it is not possible for us to be aware of them.
That's my position, and it's pretty clear. I can try to address any rebuttals you might like to offer, but I can't explain this any more clearly than I already have. If it doesn't make sense to you then we'll just have to leave it at that. The questions I've asked of you and LindaLou, not once but many times, have yet to be answered:
--Percy
|
|||||||||||||||||||
obvious Child Member (Idle past 4146 days) Posts: 661 Joined: |
That 'forum' (more like a collective of morons and fecal matter) makes my head hurt. It's like a culmination of the worst tactics and massive dishonesty of creation packed into meal and then forced fed to people as a form of torture. How do you stand being on a site so devoid of intelligence inhabited with people who obviously dropped out of school at 8th grade?
|
|||||||||||||||||||
RAZD Member (Idle past 1436 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
if you can't find fun in what you do, maybe you shouldn't do it?
|
|||||||||||||||||||
obvious Child Member (Idle past 4146 days) Posts: 661 Joined: |
Oh I understand that, but there are limits to everything.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
RAZD Member (Idle past 1436 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
maybe I'm just a sado-masochistic equine necrophiliac ...
|
|||||||||||||||||||
obvious Child Member (Idle past 4146 days) Posts: 661 Joined: |
It's quite possible. I read over a few of the threads there and my head literally hurts from the sheer ignorance and stupidity. There are criminals in this world that cannot be rehabilitated, likewise there are creationists who cannot be reasoned with at all. That 'site' seems to be full of them. It's as if all of the densest, more uneducated, most unreasonable creationists got together and made a forum.
Edited by obvious Child, : No reason given.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Percy writes: Iano, I can't even tell what topic you're addressing. It's not that complicated really. Take this..
My position is that the best way to debunk something is to examine the (5 sense detectable) evidence and see how well it corresponds to reality ('reality' being considered as that which is detectable by the 5 senses - for all practical purposes). I've added comment to the above in parentheses. The number involved is the one I suspect you would apply to yourself. Can you see the trouble that might arise for you when you apply the word "debunk" to a person merely because they fill in 6 above?
If there are aspects of reality indetectable by our senses, how do you propose to detect them? I don't propose anything. We detect what we detect - you and me both. What is real to me is what I can detect. Just like what is real for you is what you can detect. And if an aspect of reality exists outside what you or I can detect then good luck to it. But you need not include me in your 'our'. There is no need that I detect as you do.
What do you think is the best approach to debunking? I have no idea. If there is no way of determining what a person can sense then we can hardly assume the position of debunking what they can sense. Well we can...if we merely assume that position. As you seem to be arguing in favour of.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
iano writes: My position is that the best way to debunk something is to examine the (5 sense detectable) evidence and see how well it corresponds to reality ('reality' being considered as that which is detectable by the 5 senses - for all practical purposes). I've added comment to the above in parentheses. The number involved is the one I suspect you would apply to yourself. Can you see the trouble that might arise for you when you apply the word "debunk" to a person merely because they fill in 6 above? You seem to be hung up on the number of senses as somehow significant to the discussion, and not reading the thread very carefully, either. As I already said a couple of times, add any additional reasonable senses you like, such as the sense of balance, etc. Science can study anything that can be sensed by people. There is nothing that can be sensed by people that science can't study. There can only be pointless speculation about indetectable phenomena.
What do you think is the best approach to debunking? I have no idea. But that's the topic. Sounds like you should be reading the thread instead of participating. --Percy
|
|||||||||||||||||||
iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
quote: It should be clear that I am not talking about any sense scientifically testable - read my post count/content.
quote: You would have to know everything there is to know in order to know that there is nothing that can be sensed by people that science can't study. Richard Dawkins places himself as a 6 on his own scale of 1-7 for the very reason that a 7 is an illogical position. To be a 7 is to be God Percy.
quote: Unless it bows before the throne of Science then ... pointless? I'm always interested in hearing other theologies. That is a theology you have going there...
quote: I'll remind you this is a discussion forum. If you don't invite query into your "best method of debunking" then say so. Edited by iano, : No reason given. Edited by iano, : No reason given.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22508 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
iano writes: It should be clear that I am not talking about any sense scientifically testable - read my post count/content...You would have to know everything there is to know in order to know that there is nothing that can be sensed by people that science can't study. That's nonsense. Observing the real world is what people do everywhere all the time, and that's all that science does. If people can observe it then they can be scientific about observing it. There's nothing about having a lab notebook in front of you that renders phenomena unobservable.
I'll remind you this is a discussion forum. If you don't invite query into your "best method of debunking" then say so. You've queried, I've responded as best I can. As I already said, if this doesn't make sense to you then we'll just have to leave it at that. --Percy
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024