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Author Topic:   Absence of Evidence..............
Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


(1)
Message 91 of 138 (468621)
05-30-2008 7:48 PM
Reply to: Message 82 by randman
05-30-2008 6:14 PM


Re: big problem
Prove it then. Show me where empirical evidence, the kind measuring up to scientific scrunity, is reliable for deciding whom to marry, for deciding what is right and wrong or if even right and wrong outside personal choice, even exists.
In reality, making conclusions based solely on empirical evidence is wholly unreliable for most choices a human being makes.
Are you seriously suggesting that you would marry someone of whom you have no empirical experience?
Once again you confuse and conflate personal empirical experience with imagination.
Nuns and priests are the only ones who could even remotely make this sort of claim...........

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by randman, posted 05-30-2008 6:14 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 93 by randman, posted 05-30-2008 8:23 PM Straggler has replied

  
Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


(1)
Message 92 of 138 (468626)
05-30-2008 7:53 PM
Reply to: Message 83 by randman
05-30-2008 6:18 PM


Re: big problem
Sure, if someone is willing. Take acceptance and belief in Jesus Christ. It's something that can be verifiable to someone that walks the walk. It's personally empirical though still subject to debate. Nevertheless, almost if not every Christian I have known feels they have personal contact with God and some in remarkable manners, including receiving miracles.
Moreover, the idea they should reject belief in Christ, despite the mountain of evidence often in their own lives, just because a scientists says there is no empirical proof of Christ is an absurd fallacy. Just because the scientist has no personal evidence of Christ does not mean others are the same as him.
Personal empirical experience is necessarily subjective experience of an objective reality.
Those who claim Jesus is in their lives do so on the basis of nothing that could be described as objectively verifiable.
Delusion and imagination, again, are not the same as perception of an objective reality.
If you are seeing and hearing things that othere are inherently unable to see and hear then you have no evidence. You have only delusion.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 83 by randman, posted 05-30-2008 6:18 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 94 by randman, posted 05-30-2008 8:25 PM Straggler has replied

  
randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 93 of 138 (468632)
05-30-2008 8:23 PM
Reply to: Message 91 by Straggler
05-30-2008 7:48 PM


Re: big problem
Are you seriously suggesting that you would marry someone of whom you have no empirical experience?
Empirical evidence is that which is reproduced in a study, right? You seem to confuse objective evidence with empirical evidence, and yep, nearly everyone marries someone with no empirical evidence.
They have objective evidence as a filter, but even there, the deciding factor is subjective evidence for the most part. In other words, they limit the candidates via objective evidence and pick based on subjective feeling.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by Straggler, posted 05-30-2008 7:48 PM Straggler has replied

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 Message 100 by Percy, posted 05-31-2008 9:23 AM randman has not replied
 Message 109 by Straggler, posted 06-01-2008 6:22 PM randman has replied

  
randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 94 of 138 (468633)
05-30-2008 8:25 PM
Reply to: Message 92 by Straggler
05-30-2008 7:53 PM


Re: big problem
Personal empirical experience is necessarily subjective experience of an objective reality.
Define "personal empirical experience" please. Personal experience is not empirical data unless and until it is subjected to empirical verification under certain standards.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 92 by Straggler, posted 05-30-2008 7:53 PM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 110 by Straggler, posted 06-01-2008 6:28 PM randman has replied

  
randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 95 of 138 (468635)
05-30-2008 8:28 PM
Reply to: Message 90 by Straggler
05-30-2008 7:43 PM


Re: Evidence
straggler, you are missing the point. Just because someone hasn't yet thought of a way of detecting the soul doesn't mean there isn't a means of doing so.
But the article awhile back published in the Lancet offers evidence for the soul or mind existing apart from the body. That alone proves you are wrong, as they offered testimony of out of body experience where brain wave function was too low to record events in the room, and yet people remembering things that occured after their heart stopped as evidence.
I am sure as time goes by some will come up with other technigues to try to verify the existence of the soul.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 90 by Straggler, posted 05-30-2008 7:43 PM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 111 by Straggler, posted 06-01-2008 6:40 PM randman has replied

  
randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 96 of 138 (468637)
05-30-2008 8:43 PM
Reply to: Message 89 by Perdition
05-30-2008 7:22 PM


Re: big problem
However, I think remembering something that hurt me, whether physically or emotionally, is an empirical observation. Action A led to feeling B. The feeling itself is subjective, but the observation of the causation is empirical.
Really? So if I pray and experience God's presence, can I say that I have empirically proven the existence of God? Action A led to experience B, after all.
Thus, asking that people not do what causes me pain, is a logical request. Offering to do the same to others as a means of assuring my request is followed, is likewise logical.
That been working out well for ya? I believe in sowing and reaping as faith perspective. I don't think expecting people to follow your request not to hurt your feelings is rational though. Sure, it may help if you are nice guy. In some circumstances, it might do the opposite though.
Yet another group argues that biodiversity leads to a healthier ecosystem, which leads to a healthier human population, which leads to happier peolpe in general, so being eco-conscious is the best thing, not ebcause it ascribes happiness to other animals, but because it ultimately leads to longer term happiness for humans. Regardless, it does deal with the majority. If an action causes 50 people to be happier, but makes 2 people less happy and another action makes 30 people happy, and makes 22 people unhappy, then the first action is the better of the two. It goes further, though and says we should try and find an even better action that would make all 52 people happy, and makes no one unhappy.
How do you deal with the contradiction that it may be better for the species to prevent certain people from reproducing and passing on inferior genetic qualities such as inherited diseases with the idea that the best way to make everyone happy is to give them what they want and treat everyone well. In fact, if we make sure everyone is well-fed, taken care of, etc,.....does that even produce the greatest good? Does it make sense to incentivize out of wedlock births by paying teen Moms when they get pregnant and have a baby?
Is the greater good or lesser good for China to limit families to one child?
Moreover, the basic reality is picking utilitarianism is not done by empirical means but is merely a subjective choice and even after that subjective choice, it is often impossible to empirically know the best choice.
Once again, most decisions have very little to do with empirical data.
Utilitarianism is not moral relativism. Death camps causes pain and unhappiness to vast amounts of people. Not having death camps would not cause as much pain and unhappiness, therefore not having death camps is a better choice.
You are not answering the question. Faced with someone with more death camps, Stalin, and an ideology spreading with more destruction, communism, and someone with less death camps in terms of numbers killed, Hitler, which is the moral choice?
Once that wasn't an option anymore, allying with Russia to take out Hitler, again, lead to a faster end to Nazism than not allying would have done, thus increasing happiness.
Are you kidding me? We consigned millions of people to their deaths and oppression by propping up Stalin and handing him easter europe. By far, the greater happiness for the largest number of people would have been to let Hitler destroy Stalin and Soviet communism. We did not for the sole reason we didn't want Hitler dominating the world. In making that choice for our own self-interest, we willingly sold out millions of people knowingly.
It would have been nice if we had a motive to protect the Jews and others, but we wouldn't even let them emigrate despite knowing what was occuring. Regardless, the best way to increase the most people's happiness would have been to make peace with Hitler and let him take the Soviets down. Not saying that would have been right because I don't think it would have, but please don't fool yourself about the consequences of our actions. Stalin, our ally, was a far worse monster than Hitler, which is hard to do.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 89 by Perdition, posted 05-30-2008 7:22 PM Perdition has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 97 by Perdition, posted 05-30-2008 9:07 PM randman has replied

  
Perdition
Member (Idle past 3237 days)
Posts: 1593
From: Wisconsin
Joined: 05-15-2003


Message 97 of 138 (468644)
05-30-2008 9:07 PM
Reply to: Message 96 by randman
05-30-2008 8:43 PM


Re: big problem
Really? So if I pray and experience God's presence, can I say that I have empirically proven the existence of God? Action A led to experience B, after all.
No, praying led to the feeling you claim is God's presence. Action A, led to feeling B. If praying leads you to a good feeling, makes you feel better, then I would say you have empirical evidence that praying makes you feel better. It doesn't say anything about where that feeling comes from or why. If I help a friend, it makes me feel good. I now have empirical evidence that doing something to help a friend produces in me a feeling of well-being. Again, it doesn't say why I feel that way or where that feeling comes from. You're taking an experience and trying to get more out of it than can be found in it.
That been working out well for ya? I believe in sowing and reaping as faith perspective. I don't think expecting people to follow your request not to hurt your feelings is rational though. Sure, it may help if you are nice guy. In some circumstances, it might do the opposite though.
For one thing, I didn't mean literally asking. It's more of a, I'm not hurting anyone else, so I shouldn't expect anyone else to hurt me. And yes, it works out quite well for me. I treat everyone else well, and they generally treat me well.
How do you deal with the contradiction that it may be better for the species to prevent certain people from reproducing and passing on inferior genetic qualities such as inherited diseases with the idea that the best way to make everyone happy is to give them what they want and treat everyone well. In fact, if we make sure everyone is well-fed, taken care of, etc,.....does that even produce the greatest good? Does it make sense to incentivize out of wedlock births by paying teen Moms when they get pregnant and have a baby?
You seem to have a poor grasp of what Utilitarianism says, and that may be partly my fault for explaining it poorly. When it talks about "increasing happiness" it looks not only at the present but the future. Paying young women to give birth is going to lead to massive unhappiness. First of all, the children are not all going to be well cared for, thus bringing them into the world is a "bad" decision. Secondly, the Earth is becoming over-populated as it is. There are food shortages right now in some countries, so increasing the Earth's population will lead to even more people trying to eat a shrinking food supply, leading to less happiness.
As to your first point. First of all, better for the species is not the same as creating more happiness. It would take a serious study to look at probabilities of passing on an inheritable disease, the amount of unhappiness that disease causes on the person who has it. If they are able to live a full happy life, then the relatively rare incidence of the disease is not cause enough to force someone not to have children. In fact, the completely Utilitarian view would be funding a cure for the disease. Stem-cell research and genetic therapy would be the chief avenues of research in this example.
You are not answering the question. Faced with someone with more death camps, Stalin, and an ideology spreading with more destruction, communism, and someone with less death camps in terms of numbers killed, Hitler, which is the moral choice?
Again, you need to look at the forseeable future. Hitler was engaged in an attempt to conquer the world and inflict his pain and suffering over the entire population of the planet (or at least that section of it that he saw as unfit). Stalin was contentedly operating within Russia, quite a smaller group of potential victims. Also, I would need to do more research to determine if your numbers are accurate, I'm going to accept them as so. In effect, we are forced with two bad decisions, and any moral theory would have you choose one of them. In terms of future generations, it was better to stop Hitler first, then try to stop Stalin.
It would have been nice if we had a motive to protect the Jews and others, but we wouldn't even let them emigrate despite knowing what was occuring. Regardless, the best way to increase the most people's happiness would have been to make peace with Hitler and let him take the Soviets down. Not saying that would have been right because I don't think it would have, but please don't fool yourself about the consequences of our actions. Stalin, our ally, was a far worse monster than Hitler, which is hard to do.
Again, Stalin was a monster, but he was not actively trying to conquer the world and kill even more people. Do you honestly think that letting Hitler control the world would have resulted in less deaths than letting Stalin have Russia, or even Eastern Europe. I think we handled Stalin and Russia very poorly. Again, the best course of action would have been to stop Hitler when he first began breaking the treaty that ended WWI by building up an army. At the very least, we should have kept a much closer eye on him and stopped him when he went after Poland. That would have given us more opportunity and resources to try and stop Stalin. WWII was a mash of bad decisions leading to only bad options. I think Hitler was a greater threat to more people than Stalin was, based on their actions up until the mid 1940s.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 96 by randman, posted 05-30-2008 8:43 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 98 by randman, posted 05-30-2008 9:23 PM Perdition has replied

  
randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 98 of 138 (468649)
05-30-2008 9:23 PM
Reply to: Message 97 by Perdition
05-30-2008 9:07 PM


Re: big problem
Hmmm.....maybe reread my comment a bit. You response was predictable, but failed to see another point. If you are saying action A leads to feeling better and so that's evidence of action A being the right thing, you are saying feelings are the important thing, and that you have empirical evidence for feelings as what is right and wrong. In reality, you have no empirical evidence at all as in reality, what happens with one person might produce the opposite in another. Moreover, you have absolute no empirical evidence that the goal of making people feel better is the right goal, or is what we would call "good", any more than someone saying they experience God in prayer is empirical evidence of God.
It's more of a, I'm not hurting anyone else, so I shouldn't expect anyone else to hurt me.
Very naive.....sure it helps to be nice, but frankly, if you are expecting no one to ever hurt you because you are nice guy, you might as well believe in magic, and certainly you are way, way off the empirical reservation.
Moreover, doing the right thing will sometimes make some want to hurt you as it is not always popular as you surmise.
Again, you need to look at the forseeable future. Hitler was engaged in an attempt to conquer the world and inflict his pain and suffering over the entire population of the planet (or at least that section of it that he saw as unfit). Stalin was contentedly operating within Russia, quite a smaller group of potential victims.
First off, Stalin and the Soviets were more interested in spreading communism than Hitler was in conquering the world. Fact is he wasn't trying to conquer the world. He was insane, but his main objective was to conquer the Serbs so that more Nordic types could dominate, use eugenics to artifically select certain features, advance high technology (which they were very good at doing) and kill off the Jews in Europe.
Fact is it is highly debatable that defeating Hitler was preferable to Stalin's defeat. Your best argument is that American dominance is preferable and so defeating Germany led to more American dominance of the world. But considering the numbers of people harmed by communism as opposed to the smaller numbers helped by American values, it would be very hard to sustain that argument empirically.
Again, Stalin was a monster, but he was not actively trying to conquer the world and kill even more people. Do you honestly think that letting Hitler control the world would have resulted in less deaths than letting Stalin have Russia, or even Eastern Europe.
I think you underestimate the international ambitions of communists. Moreover, yea, Hitler dominating Russia and Eastern Europe would certainly have been better than Stalin doing so, far better. Ask yourself this.
If you were not Jewish or mentally handicapped, would you rather have lived under Hitler or Stalin in a time of peace?
Stalin ruined his economy and people. Hitler's system, as barbaric as some aspects were, had a booming economy and far more personal liberty. Both were monsters, but Hitler was more a monster to a minority whereas Stalin and communism a monster to all. If you are basing things on utilitarianism, you'd have to say Hitler was better, and considering the 200 million or so Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc,....killed or caused to die with absurd policies, the best for most people would be for communism to have been crushed at that time. Keep in mind Hitler wasn't going to live forever.
Of course, I don't have a problem with us crushing Hitler. But then again, I think advocating utilitarianism is somewhat naive, and I understand it perfectly well. Heck, I've studied this at the graduate level and when you break it down, it's unworkable as a universal concept, and at times, it's deadly.
But it has it's place too.
Edited by randman, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 97 by Perdition, posted 05-30-2008 9:07 PM Perdition has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 99 by Perdition, posted 05-30-2008 9:57 PM randman has replied

  
Perdition
Member (Idle past 3237 days)
Posts: 1593
From: Wisconsin
Joined: 05-15-2003


Message 99 of 138 (468658)
05-30-2008 9:57 PM
Reply to: Message 98 by randman
05-30-2008 9:23 PM


Re: big problem
But then again, I think advocating utilitarianism is somewhat naive,
I agree. I was never trying to advocate Utilitarianism. I disagree with it. I was merely pointing out that there are theories that say you can empirically decide right and wrong. I think it is naive to think there is some Universal Morality out there, and we just happen to have stumbled onto it.
Very naive.....sure it helps to be nice, but frankly, if you are expecting no one to ever hurt you because you are nice guy, you might as well believe in magic, and certainly you are way, way off the empirical reservation.
Moreover, doing the right thing will sometimes make some want to hurt you as it is not always popular as you surmise
I don't think it will stop everyone from hurting me, and I am quite aware that there are people who would willingly take advantage of a person who did. I just think I get a better chance at being treated well if I treat others well. Being an asshole generally leads others to treat you like one.
Past experience is empirical, and people almost always use past experience to make decisions. It is also true that people make decisions based on non-empirical reasons, but I don't think Straggler would disagree with that (I may be wrong). I think what he's trying to say is that reliable decisions require empirical evidence.
As to Hitler vs. Stalin: Hitler, during his reign, was able to kill between 11 and 14 million people (according to Wikipedia) and Stalin was able to kill at most 30 million (again according to Wikipedia)and that was over a much longer period. I would say it is quite clear that were Hitler not stopped, he would have killed far more than Stalin did. Pol Pot and China, etc has no bearing on whether it was better to ally with Stalin to stop Hitler.
Regardless, Stalin and Hitler are far off topic, and I think we agree on the point. If not, maybe we should start a new thread.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 98 by randman, posted 05-30-2008 9:23 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 106 by randman, posted 06-01-2008 12:54 PM Perdition has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 100 of 138 (468682)
05-31-2008 9:23 AM
Reply to: Message 93 by randman
05-30-2008 8:23 PM


Re: big problem
randman writes:
Empirical evidence is that which is reproduced in a study, right?
Wikipedia appears to have a good definition. If I remember correctly, you don't consider Wikipedia a reliable source, so I'm providing this webpage of definitions of "empirical" from Answers.com which contains definitions from a number of sources, of which Wikipedia's appears to be the most clear, saying:
Wikipedia on empirical writes:
A central concept in science and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses. Empirical data is data that is produced by experiment or observation.[1] It is usually differentiated from the philosophic usage of empiricism by the use of the adjective "empirical" or the adverb "empirically." "Empirical" as an adjective or adverb is used in conjunction with both the natural and social sciences, and refers to the use of working hypotheses that are testable using observation or experiment. In this sense of the word, scientific statements are subject to and derived from our experiences or observations.
We could probably define subjective observations as those for which there is a significant contribution from the observer. In other words, the observations are unique to the person performing them and are not replicable by others.
Even though it's been more than a century, the most famous example of this in science is still Dr. Prosper-René Blondlot, the discoverer of N-rays. Blondlot and the other researchers in his laboratory somehow convinced themselves that they were observing an actual objective phenomenon that they could see with their own eyes when in reality it was purely subjective.
--Percy

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 Message 93 by randman, posted 05-30-2008 8:23 PM randman has not replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 101 of 138 (468744)
06-01-2008 3:34 AM
Reply to: Message 79 by Percy
05-30-2008 5:49 PM


Percy writes:
One problem with the absence of evidence argument is that there's never really an absence of evidence. There's always a scale running from strong evidence to moderate evidence to slim evidence to nearly non-existent evidence, but I don't the evidence for something, no matter how unlikely it might seem to many, ever reaches zero.
I wouldn't describe it that way. I think there are propositions for which the evidence is absolute zero, and there are propositions that go into the negative.
An example of a zero evidence proposition:
The universe was created by seven Goddesses because they wanted to see what would happen in black holes.
I call that zero evidence because there's no evidence for it or against it.
We get into negative territory when there's zero evidence supporting the proposition, but there's evidence against it. For example:
This planet is flat.
This planet is 6,300 years old.
I think the thread is concerned with propositions like the first one (the 7 Goddesses). No evidence against it does not make it a fifty/fifty proposition IMO. It's one of billions of creation of the universe ideas falling into the "zero evidence" category that we could dream up, so I think that such ideas should always be treated as extremely unlikely, and should never be taught to children as being "true".
Religious people, of all faiths, will disagree, of course, because all religious beliefs at best hit the zero evidence level (making them extremely unlikely) and quite a few are in the negative range (there's actually evidence against them).
When we get to scientific hypotheses like, for example, the existence of the Higgs Boson, then I agree with the view you expressed above. But such hypotheses are evidence based, however indirectly, so they are automatically far more worthy of serious consideration than my seven Goddesses proposition.
An interesting question would be whether or not there are some evidenceless propositions that are more likely than others (meaning those on zero evidence). I'd argue that there must be. For example, the general proposition of teleology in the universe is more likely than a specific proposition (like the seven Goddesses) and the more defined the seven Goddesses are (without evidence) the more remote the possibility of their existence.
If you get down to something very specific like:
The universe was created by a being who particularly favoured one middle-eastern tribe, has been known to do things like turning people into pillars of salt, and once visited his favoured tribe as his own son in order to save them from his own wrath.....then we're in the realms of the extremely unlikely.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 79 by Percy, posted 05-30-2008 5:49 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 102 by Percy, posted 06-01-2008 8:06 AM bluegenes has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 102 of 138 (468750)
06-01-2008 8:06 AM
Reply to: Message 101 by bluegenes
06-01-2008 3:34 AM


bluegenes writes:
An example of a zero evidence proposition:
The universe was created by seven Goddesses because they wanted to see what would happen in black holes.
I call that zero evidence because there's no evidence for it or against it.
I look at this a little differently, let me see if I can explain how.
Let's say an "archaeologist" discovers Egyptian hieroglyphs that he interprets as describing the universe being created by seven Goddesses inside a black hole. You and I would argue that that isn't real evidence, but then we're setting ourselves up as the guardians at the gate for what constitutes evidence and what doesn't. The fact of the matter is that some people are going to find this evidence acceptable and some are not (okay, most are not), and some of the people who accept it or at least give it a degree of consideration may surprise you. No one person or group of people can set themselves up as judges for what consitutes acceptable evidence within science. All evidence, good, bad and horrible in our own opinion, has to be submitted to the scientific community.
The only way science really has for deciding any issue is to let the community of scientists from the relevant field examine all the evidence, each individual scientist using his own judgement in deciding what constitutes valid evidence and what does not and how much weight to give each item of evidence, and arriving at a consensus. The consensus may or may not happen, but if it does then that's what we consider accepted science. Different scientists may have used different evidence and different weights on the evidence, and the consensus view on each item of evidence is also part of science. And even though there is some evidence that no scientist considered worthy, it's still evidence.
The more familiar example is sea shells on mountain tops. Young earth creationists see this as evidence for a huge global flood lasting maybe a year, and it is. But you dig down a foot and find more shells, and that's evidence for a somewhat longer flood. Then you dig down 10 feet and find more shells, and that's evidence for a very long flood. And then you dig down 100 feet and find more shells, and now the flood hypothesis begins to feel a bit odd since these shells are encased in the mountain, indeed make up a measurable proportion of the mountain, and it doesn't make sense that the shells of successive generations of sea shelled creatures would deposit themselves on the sea floor in the shape of a mountain.
But sea shells on the surface are still evidence of a possible flood. And if digging had revealed no evidence of shells beneath the surface, guess what? The flood hypothesis would have to be considered a viable alternative, especially if other mountains around the world revealed the same pattern. So it absolutely isn't true that there is no evidence for Noah's flood. It's just that the evidence supporting the flood has more than one possible interpretation, and only when added to the other evidence does it become clear that there was never any such flood.
I think the thread is concerned with propositions like the first one (the 7 Goddesses). No evidence against it does not make it a fifty/fifty proposition IMO.
And hopefully in everyone else's opinion, too, otherwise every impossible idea anyone blurts out becomes a fifty/fifty proposition simply because it hasn't been investigated yet, which seems absurd to me.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 101 by bluegenes, posted 06-01-2008 3:34 AM bluegenes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 103 by bluegenes, posted 06-01-2008 9:12 AM Percy has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 103 of 138 (468755)
06-01-2008 9:12 AM
Reply to: Message 102 by Percy
06-01-2008 8:06 AM


Percy writes:
And hopefully in everyone else's opinion, too, otherwise every impossible idea anyone blurts out becomes a fifty/fifty proposition simply because it hasn't been investigated yet, which seems absurd to me.
Well, exactly. Bluegenes claiming that the universe was created by 7 Goddesses and an ancient Egyptian doing so are one and the same. Evidenceless claims. Take, for example, a real belief that the Egyptians wrote about at some time in their history; that one of their Pharaohs was a living God. That's a zero evidence claim to me as well.
But your shells on top of mountains as one time apparent evidence for a world wide flood is something different, and a better example to back your view. Someone making this claim does have the shells to point to, rather than just claiming "there was a world wide flood" which, on its own, would be like my 7 Goddess claim.
It's interesting, though, that the flood claim, in consideration of current evidence, has actually moved into the negative area by my system (because there's evidence against it) whereas the Goddesses remain at absolute zero. So the flood, like the once reasonable observation based view that the sun goes round the earth, has thus gone from a better than zero evidence position to a worse than zero evidence position.
I think that your consensus opinion of scientists view is a good practical guide to what we teach our children in schools in any particular epoch. Even though we know that it's tentative, it's the nearest to objectivity we can get.
I think that our difference is mainly that you're being generous, and automatically giving an idea "some evidence" status as soon as it's proposed, whereas I don't think that the prophet bluegenes's claim that the universe was created by 7 Goddesses has that status, and it would be the same if the claim was made by an ancient Egyptian rather than a modern Englishman.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 102 by Percy, posted 06-01-2008 8:06 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 104 by Percy, posted 06-01-2008 10:28 AM bluegenes has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 104 of 138 (468757)
06-01-2008 10:28 AM
Reply to: Message 103 by bluegenes
06-01-2008 9:12 AM


bluegenes writes:
It's interesting, though, that the flood claim, in consideration of current evidence, has actually moved into the negative area by my system (because there's evidence against it) whereas the Goddesses remain at absolute zero. So the flood, like the once reasonable observation based view that the sun goes round the earth, has thus gone from a better than zero evidence position to a worse than zero evidence position.
Yes, precisely! And the way I would describe this is not that there's no evidence for the flood, and not that there's no evidence for geocentrism, but that the sum of the evidence rules out the flood, and that the sum of the evidence rules out geocentrism. But there *is* evidence of each.
I think that our difference is mainly that you're being generous, and automatically giving an idea "some evidence" status as soon as it's proposed, whereas I don't think that the prophet bluegenes's claim that the universe was created by 7 Goddesses has that status, and it would be the same if the claim was made by an ancient Egyptian rather than a modern Englishman.
Well, I guess I can't object to a characterization of my position as generous when measured against the spectrum of opinion on this, but I would argue that one really has no choice. Bob makes the unsupported assertion that, "Seven goddesses created the universe inside a black hole," and Jim hears this assertion and later says to you, "Bob is a respected cosmologist, and he says that seven goddesses created the universe inside a black hole." In my view that's evidence. Incredibly poor evidence, but evidence none the less.
In some circles, such as when we talk among ourselves, we all agree out of hand that we need not mention, let alone consider, such evidence. But in discussions with creationists there is no such inherent understanding of the nature of proper evidence. To them this is evidence, and the reasons why it is extremely poor evidence have to be respectfully addressed and explained.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 103 by bluegenes, posted 06-01-2008 9:12 AM bluegenes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 105 by bluegenes, posted 06-01-2008 12:51 PM Percy has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 105 of 138 (468765)
06-01-2008 12:51 PM
Reply to: Message 104 by Percy
06-01-2008 10:28 AM


Percy writes:
But in discussions with creationists there is no such inherent understanding of the nature of proper evidence. To them this is evidence, and the reasons why it is extremely poor evidence have to be respectfully addressed and explained.
I understand what you mean, although I don't think our Christian creationists would consider there to be any evidence for the claim of seven Goddesses, actually, any more than they consider there to be evidence for the claim that the Qur'an is the word of God. In fact, they immediately dismiss all baseless claims except their own, but I agree that their own can be zero (or sub-zero) on my system, and presumably "incredibly poor evidence" in yours.
I think that the complete absence of evidence is evidence of absence, but not proof of absence. But if you're going to claim that there is evidence for any assertion once it's made, then we won't quite agree on this.
So, if I've understood you, there is a tiny bit of evidence for the proposition that 157 Djinns created the universe as soon as someone makes that suggestion. But I think that such propositions are on the Russell's teapot in space level. So that, if not zero, virtual zero chance has to be given them.
However, I admit that I see degrees of plausibility, based on how general the proposition is. So, as I said in a post above, a very general claim of some kind of teleological origin to the universe has to beat specific claims like my Djinns and Goddesses in likelihood, even though it could be said to be equally evidenceless, on the basis that it includes them and an infinite number of other evidenceless propositions.
I'm probably contradicting myself somewhere there!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 104 by Percy, posted 06-01-2008 10:28 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 107 by Percy, posted 06-01-2008 4:32 PM bluegenes has replied

  
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