NialScorva

I'm a hack. I'm just providing an alternative interpretation of the post, one that I think it was intended in. You're posts are very welcome, I'm just trying to provide a balance.

BobDobbs

I attempted to, and I suppose that I failed to highlight the fact that the criticisms from Mr. Carrier's anonymous reviewer seemed very petty to me, and the whole post smacked of a 'scorched earth' approach that is inherently destructive, not instrutive. How much harder would it have been for Mr. Anonymous to constructively criticize SingleDad's post instead of:

A: Not giving his name or credentials
B: Submitting a review with childish and unnecesary insults in it?

ESPECIALLY considering SingleDad's 'Amateur' status! What scholarly criticism existed in the paper was just peachy, but the rest of the content seemed the work of a person with a compelling need to prove his own intelligence by belittling others.

Bob Dobbs

Edited for my inevitable typos as well as clarification.

[ January 03, 2002: Message edited by: BobDobbs ]</p>

BobDobbs

Exactly my point Mr. Sentinel! The average joe reading SingleDad's work would not give a flip if he saw evidentiary or evedential! The Anonymous reviewer, from my point of view had his filter set up much too high. He was not reviewing a dissertation for someone's doctorate. Hence, that particular criticism seemed petty and overly anal-retentive to me.

Bob

Vorkosigan

Tricky question, that! In some sense "facts" and "frameworks" are interchangeable; a "fact" at one level is a "framework" at another.

I put my original comment badly, that's for sure, as you have slyly pointed out. That's probably why I revised it in my next post.

Michael

pug846

Nial, if the author of the critique was merely offering his or her opinion, then it was useless – the persons opinion is only worth taking into consideration if they have a reputation and credentials. Given that the person remained faceless, the critique was worthless. If the author offered devastating arguments as to why SD’s essay was crap, then fine. The author’s identity and credentials aren’t important – the arguments would stand and fall on their own merits. But given that there is no devastating critique, despite the author of the critique feeling confident that the essay was of very poor quality, we are left with nothing.

NialScorva

As with any opinion, you can take it or leave it at whim. However, the opinion did address issues with the paper. It wasn't a point by point analysis, but that's not needed for the question it answered: Is this essay suitable for inclusion in the infidels library. Don't lose sight that this was the context in which the answer was given according to Mr Carrier. Many people are completely losing the context of the post, it's not an argument, it's an editorial opinion. Richard Carrier is Editor in Chief, his opinion matters. If he consults someone he trusts in making a decision, then it's Mr Carrier's opinion by proxy. I can only see this an attack on Mr Carrier's authority, as you are directly challenging his ability to choose who's opinions matter when he reviews submissions.

That being said, the post did make several direct points addressing to the inadequacy. If you remove the first and last paragraphs, then it's entirely about areas that need shoring up. I'm somewhat surprised that Singledad did not answer "I shall do some research and address these points in my next draft". I would think that's a much healthier attitude to editorial review.

NialScorva

This thread has wondered off of philosophy. Any further criticism of actions or motivations should be taken to a Problems/Complaints thread. I submitted that further discussion should revolve around the original topic, or whether the author's criticism is valid philosophically.

A summary of Evidentialism:

Evidentialism is a philosophy of religion that claims that the totallity of one's experience (aka evidence) must support one's religious beleifs. The term seems to have been originally formulated by John Locke in order to combat the sectarians of his day. A (very) rough overview of evidentialism would be "we have justification to believe a proposition iff it fits our evidence". This clearly does not outlaw many theistic arguments, including fine tuning, as it is an example of a proposition that can fit the evidence. You can find further information about evidentialism from a goodle search, or some
<a href="http://www.ling.rochester.edu/~feldman/philosophy243/chap04-evidentialism.html" target="_blank">course notes</a> which are the best online information about evidentialism that I found (most of my information comes from Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy).

Singledad's essay seems to fit nicely under the label of skeptical evidentialism. In addition to the prescription that a proposition must fit the evidence, it attempts to make use of Bayesian probability to select which of a set of mutually exclusive propositions has better evidence. The reviewer's opinion is quite pertinent and addresses SingleDad's essay if SD was trying to approach it from an evidentialist standpoint (whether he called it evidentialism or not). Critiques that I extract from his post are:

- Incomplete distinction between logical and evidential arguments.
- Poor definition of evidential argument ("what is actually the case", where "best explanation for the facts" actually works better for SD's argument, and is cannonical)
- Evidential arguments can appeal to facts that are consistent with denial of the conclusion of evidential argument. (ie, you can use facts that work for both P and ~P, not just exclusive ones)
- Fine tuning is a evidential argument, as it appeals solely to facts to support the "best explanation".

Vorkosigan

Fine tuning IS a evidential argument, as it appeals solely to facts to support the "best explanation".

Fine Tuning is an argument from incredulity, not an evidential argument. It surely does not appeal "solely" to facts, since no fact could ever lead one to conclude the universe was designed (that's a cognitive bias on our part).

Michael

NialScorva

Fine Tuning is an evidential argument contigent upon the unproven fact of a tuner's existence. Fine Tuning (thinking Dembski style) is consistent with the facts. The problem you refer to is when the consistency with facts of Fine tuning is used to infer a designer, thus causing an affirmation of the consequent. It then becomes an argument from increduality when one not only asserts it's consistency, but it's exclusive correctness based upon no other possible explanation.

phaedrus

Michael, care to elaborate on this point?