This is a modified version of a previous post of mine. The original was made in a one on one debate relating to almost identical issues some time ago. I am hoping that Admins won't mind me re-presenting large parts of that post to a potentially wider audience. It is not my intention to make a habit of regurgitating my own material in a flurry of cut and paste mania.
Bertot writes:
Insufficiant Methodology is excally the opposite discription of what deductive reasoning and reality demonstrate, your assertion notwihtstanding.
BERTOT’S ARGUMENTBertot’s argument can be summed up thus -
(empirical evidence)+( deductive logic)=(reliable conclusions)
Therefore as long as conclusions are based on deductive logic and the evidence available they are valid regardless of the nature of the conclusions drawn. All logically valid conclusions are permitted whether they result in directly testable material conclusions or not. Bertot then goes on to argue that by applying logic to the available evidence in this way God is the logical conclusion regarding cosmological origins.
STRAGGLER'S POSITIONAs I shall demonstrate the above argument is deeply flawed. Bertot's methodology results in intrinsically unreliable conclusions to which the only logical practical alternative is a hypothesis based approach, or conventional science as we know it.
A hypothesis based approach, as I shall show, is required both to maximise objectivity and to tackle the inevitable problem of incomplete evidence. A hypothesis based approach will be demonstrated to be the best method of overcoming the practical limitations imposed on any investigation of the natural world, and will also be demonstrated to be the method by which we are able to draw the most reliable conclusions possible. Bertot's methodology and resulting conclusions will thus be shown to be invalid, unreliable and inferior.
RIVAL THEORIESIs it possible for two theories based on the same evidence and with the application of logic to come to alternative and opposing conclusions?
(empirical evidence)+(deductive logic)=(reliable conclusion)
If the above methodology is applied to produce conclusion A and conclusion B from the
same set of empirical evidence (where A and B are mutually exclusive ) what happens?
(empirical evidence)+(deductive logic)=(conclusion A)(empirical evidence)+(deductive logic)=(conclusion B)
According to Bertot's proposed methodology both conclusions are valid and to be considered reliable if the logic applied is valid in each case.
However either A or B must obviously be wrong by the law of contradiction
We cannot therefore say that both A and B are reliable conclusions.
Thus if two mutually exclusive but logically valid conclusions are both considered reliable by Bertot’s methodology the methodology itself is invalidated. If Bertot's argument and methodology is to remain intact Bertot’s methodology can only ever allow ONE reliable conclusion from any given set of empirical evidence. Yet the history of science is littered with examples of rival theories drawing different logical conclusions from the same empirical evidence. How so? Are all such cases examples of the misapplication of logic?
THE SUBJECTIVE APPLICATION OF POOR LOGICSo how has it come to be that two (or more) mutually exclusive theories can both co-exist. Must all but one be the result of the poor application of logic to physical evidence?
It is certainly true that human beings are not perfectly logical creatures. It is certainly true that whether consciously or unconsciously our desires often lead us to conclusions that seem very logical but which are in fact not. Can we therefore attribute the existence of rival theories to poor logic alone?
(empirical evidence)+(poor logic)=(unreliable conclusion)
This would superficially seem to account for the existence of rival theories whilst allowing Bertot's methodology to remain theoretically intact. However this just raises an additional problem. Being the logically imperfect creatures that we indisputably are how are we to guarantee our ability to differentiate poor logic from valid logic? If we are to overcome this problem we need an objective method of ensuring that our logic is valid. Simply asserting "it is obvious" is not sufficient as "obviousness" itself is subjective. If it was "obvious" rival theories due to poor logic would never arise in the first place.
So even if Bertot's methodology is valid the ability to objectively
know when valid, rather than poor, logic has been applied remains a serious problem. Subjectively derived unreliable conclusions are an inevitable possibility when human beings are involved. However Bertot's problems lie deeper than this as the subjective application of poor logic alone cannot account for all rival theories. To illustrate this consider the following trivial example.
Example: We are presented with a room in which a full glass of water sits. We are asked to form a conclusion as to how the water came to be in the glass.
(glass of water)+(deductive logic)=(conclusion A) = The glass was filled with water and brought into the room
(glass of water)+(deductive logic)=(conclusion B) = Somebody came into the room and filled the glass of water from a jug
Question: Which of these two theories is the result of poor logic? Which one is
necessarily and logically wrong?
The answer is that neither is
necessarily wrong. Both are logically viable theories.
Remember that if two logically valid theories can both legitimately exist then Bertot's whole methodology is invalidated.
(empirical evidence)+( deductive logic)=(reliable conclusions)
Both conclusions cannot both be reliable. One must be wrong. Hence even valid logic does not necessarily render conclusions reliable.
So not only does Bertot's theory rely on a non-existent method of objectively identifying valid and invalid subjectively applied logic it actually fails even if all the logic applied is guaranteed to be valid.
Bertot's theory lies in tatters because she has made the fatal mistake of ignoring one of the key practical features of evidence based investigation. Namely the problem of incomplete evidence.
INCOMPLETE EVIDENCEBertot’s deductive logic methodology is actually perfectly valid in one particular and very special instance.
Where we have
ALL of the possible evidence and can guarantee valid objectively applied logic the methodology works superbly.
(Complete empirical evidence)+(guaranteed valid logic)=(wholly reliable conclusion)
Then the issue of rival theories becomes moot.
With the
complete set of
all the empirical evidence and the guaranteed correct application of valid logic only
one conclusion
is indeed possible.
The law of contradiction remains unbroken and we know that we have reached the most reliable conclusion it is possible to reach (
the truth?).
In the case of
ALWAYS having
ALL of the available evidence the application of guaranteed valid logic alone would be a perfectly acceptable and valid method of drawing reliable conclusions.
OMNISCIENCE REQUIREDHowever is it possible to EVER have ALL the required evidence?
More importantly for science - Is it ever possible for us to
KNOW that we have
ALL the required evidence?
Unless we claim omniscience (which alas is not permitted and which would make any scientific investigation utterly pointless anyway) the answer to the second question at least must be
NO!
There is always the possibility that new evidence will surface and that our theories and conclusions will be refuted. In addition we still have not addressed the question of being objectively certain that our logic is indeed valid. Thus our 'equation'
necessarily becomes
(incomplete empirical evidence)+(potentially valid logic)=(unreliable conclusions)
Given that we cannot ever know if we have all the required evidence and given that our aim is to make reliable conclusions any method that we apply to draw conclusions MUST assume that the evidence available is insufficient.
The combination of incomplete evidence and potentially invalid logic necessarily leads us to unreliable conclusions and is thus no basis on which to draw any conclusions at all. Simply asserting that more evidence is required is just not recognising the nature of the problem. We can never know how much evidence will be required to make our conclusions reliable.
No matter how valid our logic we must always assume the appliance of logic alone to incomplete evidence is insufficient to meet our stated aim of drawing reliable conclusions
Thus Bertot's methodology irretrievably falls apart at the seams to all practical intents and purposes.
REAL SCIENCE - THE WAY FORWARDSSo if our evidence must be considered incomplete, our logic potentially flawed and our resulting conclusions unreliable where does that leave us?
Despair not. There is an answer. The answer is the scientific method.
Not only does the scientific method tackle the fact that our evidence must be necessarily considered incomplete, it embraces this fact. Not only does the scientific method acknowledge that our logic may be subjective and invalid, it confronts this head-on.
Consider the following alternative form of the equation we have been considering up until now
(incomplete empirical evidence)+(potentially valid logic)=(hypothesis)
A hypothesis is NOT a conclusion as such. It is something which needs to be
tested against that which it purports to describe in order to be validated or refuted. That is the
key difference.
I could at this point cite dictionary definitions of the term 'hypothesis'. I could refer to great reams of literature written by far better men than I regarding the scientific method and its application.
On the basis that we are all familiar with the basic concepts I will not bother. With regard to the application of the scientific method to nature specifically (I.e. natural science) a couple of comments are however necessary in the context of this debate.
1) As applied to nature a hypothesis based approach can, in my view, be encapsulated thus - "Any fool can make a theory fit the facts BUT only those closest to the truth can hope to find that the facts fit the theory". In other words constructing theories that comply with existing evidence is easy to do and highly open to subjective interpretation disguised as "logic". However theories that reveal new aspects of nature which are then confirmed have passed the most difficult test it is possible to apply to any theory. The workings of nature will not obey our theories no matter how much we may wish it. The workings of nature will not obey our theories no matter how logical we might consider them to be. Hence prediction as the gold standard of evaluation in terms assessing theories and hypotheses.
2) A hypothesis based approach is necessarily tentative. Hypotheses are refuted or verified but never
proven. By building our hypotheses on the foundations of evidence revealed by previously tested and verified hypotheses we can build up a body of knowledge of which we can have a high degree of certainty. With enough evidence, enough verification and enough corroboration from other interrelated scientific disciplines employing the same exacting tests against other aspects of nature we can even reach the point where we consider our theories to be factual descriptions of the world to all practical intents and purposes. Despite this we must always recognise that the evidence on which all of this is based must be assumed to be incomplete and thus our theories to be tentative to some degree at least.
A hypothesis based approach is the practical means by which we can make the
MOST reliable conclusions whilst recognising that the evidence available to us must always be considered incomplete and open to the subjective application of logic.
If the stated aim of science is to draw the
most reliable conclusions regarding the natural world then the scientific method is what it is because it is the
best means we have of ensuring that this aim is achieved.
RELIABLE CONCLUSIONSIf we apply our current 'equation' -
(incomplete empirical evidence)+(potentially valid logic)=(hypothesis)
to the natural world what outcomes are possible?
As previously stated a hypothesis is not a conclusion in itself. A hypothesis needs to be tested against that which it purports to describe. The exact nature of these tests will very much depend on the nature of the investigation and the phenomenon under consideration. Studying the evolution of the universe using a hypothesis based approach, for example, is obviously very different from studying a phenomenon that can be repeatedly observed under laboratory conditions. However this
must not be a reason to lower the standards of evidence that science demands. The standards of scientific evidence are such that if conclusions regarding particular physical phenomenon have not yet been rendered reliable by means of verified hypotheses then ignorance
must be acknowledged ahead of unreliable claims.
Creationists seem often to assume that where science acknowledges ignorance (cosmological origins for example) the position of science is inferior to their creator based argument purely on the basis that an answer is better than no answer. This is folly and demonstrates a deep misunderstanding of the nature of science. It is because science will not make unwarranted claims of reliability that science is so successful. This perceived weakness is actually the foundation of science's greatest strengths. Untested alternatives of the sort Bertot is proposing suffer from both the subjective application of logic and the problem of incomplete evidence. They are inherently unreliable.
CONCLUSIONBertot's deductive logic methodology has been shown to lead to inherently unreliable conclusions. The use of hypotheses as an alternative method of establishing reliable theories has been demonstrated to be superior. If the aim of a given investigation is to draw the most reliable conclusions possible given the evident practical limitations of knowledge then there is frankly no contest between the two positions.
The conclusions Bertot makes regarding cosmological origins have been made using flawed methods of reasoning. As such any conclusions are inherently unreliable.
Bertot's position has been shown to be both logically invalid and inadequate in any practical sense. Her methodologies have been found wanting, her arguments dissected and her conclusions utterly and totally invalidated.
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