RufusAtticus

If 5S truly wanted to censor you, he would have deleted all the posts. When I saw your multiple posts I knew they were going to get x-ed because of that rule. I still think that you should develop a trimmer version (perhaps with only review papers) and link to the larger set.

RufusAtticus

BTW, am I the only one who noticed that Socrates has been voted member of the month on TW. If that doesn't sum it up nothing will.

Remember this is the same "Christian" who interpretes the sermon on the mound as "be nice to people like you, be a jerk to every one else."

Gurdur

I think you're making a molehill out of a mountain.

WinAce

I was going to post that about Member of the Month Sockrateece yesterday, but was busy attaching my floored jaw back.

Dr.GH

Yeah, I took a look at their BB today. I don't know ... There are some real live knuckle draggin' YECs over there, but I have a life that needs some attention too.

Maybe I'll have a few more beers and wander over there. The book is stalled again, my wife is at work, the fish aren't biting-- I might as well go be abused.

Kevbo

So what's the vote, Socrates = Safarti?

Vorkosigan

Never mind this post, I am just storing it here in case of "moderation".

The thread is here for those of you who are interested. Rufus and I are engaged with 5Solas. I can't wait to read Rufus' reply.

*******
Your conclusion being that since we cannot "see" DNA with the naked eye we need to "infer" that it exists and that this inference necessarily means that all "observations" are nothing more than part of a LONG chain of inferences heaped upon inferences (with the conclusion being another inference!).

I would point out that IF that is what science is then science has been reduced completely to subjective "inference" and therefore absurdity.

FiveSolas, you are totally confused. First, as I explained to you about 100 posts ago, all observations are inferences. Rufus and I and ED have conclusively demonstrated that. All the tests you proposed above show inferences of the presence of DNA.

Second, the subjectivity of observation and inference is not a serious problem because (1) science is a social act. That's why observations and experiments and repeated and tested. Are you aware of the term "intersubjectivity?" See Science as Social Knowledge by H. Longino, for example; (2) science has numerous structural features (standardized reporting, measurement, expression, logic and value systems) that reduce, eliminate, channel, exploit, or control, subjectivity; and (3) subjectivity is an important element of scientific thought. Viewed another way, we call it "creativity."

the theory that perceiving is epistemologically direct. unmediated by conscious or unconscious inference...

This theory is complete garbage, long ago refuted by the cognitive sciences. There can be no "epistemologically direct" observation, because sense data undergoes processing in the mind, which then constructs a picture of the world, much as the cockpit computers of an F-117 construct a picture of the world from the sensor data they recieve, from which the pilot can then select features of the world important to the mission. I suggest you bone up on any good intro to cognitive science textbook.

Remember the color correction system in your visual processing system? If there is no unconscious processing, how is it that a blue car under a flourescent streetlight looks purple?

I hope you next post will deal with the cognitive science data, rather than archaic and now-obsolete views of the mind and epistemology.

"Here is the central hypothesis of cognitive science: Thinking can best be understood in terms of representational structures in the mind and computational procedures that operate on those structures. Although there is much disagreement about the nature of the representations and computations that constitute thinking, the central hypothesis is general enough to encompass the current range of thinking in cognitive science . . . I call this approach to understanding the mind based on this central hypothesis CRUM, for Computational-Representational Understanding of Mind." See Thagard's 1996 book Mind. Or stop by this site"

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognitive-science/

There is simply no way your position holds up in light of modern cognitive science.

You ask:

Do the bands produced on x-ray film depend upon our inferences or are they SOLELY the product of the physical properties of the chemicals, energy, etc., involved?

Your experience of the bands, 5S, takes place inside your mind. Your mind builds a picture of them, inferring them from sense data as well as in-built processing systems that assume things like physical causality, to present to your consciousness the things your mind thinks it needs. It's inferences all the way down; there is no escape.

Like I noticed before, you have confused "scientific" and "ordinary" observation. An observation becomes "scientific" precisely because it is in a chain of inferences. Your comment about the bands simply illustrates this error; marks on X-ray film are simply marks on X-ray film. The bands themselves have no meaning; they are just streaks on film until you insert them in some framework of inferences that allows you to conclude that they indicate something. If you just picked up the film on the street it would have no meaning. The "scientific observation" occurs precisely because you can make an inference and because this data is in a network of assumptions and inferences.

For example, in this case, the X-ray streaks are meaningful precisely because you established scientific controls -- a framework of that includes some kind of isolation of the object and the tests on it. These methodological controls include a number of assumptions and inferences about the nature of reality -- ranging from foundational assumptions like that it is stable, reliable, and predictable, for example (as a believer in the supernatural you suspend your own beliefs for the duration of this experiment and assume the changes in the film represent physical acts and not actions by some supernatural entity). The tests you performed were the results of assumptions and inferences you make from prior tests conducted by others, ranging from "the presence of X-ray streaks indicates DNA" to "this film from Kodak is reliable" to "the appearance of the X-rays at this stage in the process indicates I have done the test properly." And so on. There are literally thousands of inferences.

This not including all the processing of raw sense data going on in your mind, which is busy eliminating non-relevant information from the inference process, as well as the processing of certain other information. For example, the testing process changes the X-ray film in several ways, but you disregard some changes as not important while focusing on others (streaks). How did your mind know to disregard some changes but not others? Inferences, of course, conclusions based on past experience, logic, and new data.

I could go on. Suffice to say you haven't a leg to stand on.

Vorkosigan

Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan, did you notice that Socrates didn't reply to this post?

[I have removed the content because it is off topic here.]

best,
Peter Kirby

Conchobar

What is all of this Bible quoting have to do with quarks, electrons, tectonic plates, biological evolution, DNA mutational mechanisms, the many categories of evidence supporting the observed fact of evolution.

Instead you are talking about the Bible. What does the Bible have to do with anything rational? Put it back into the Theology and Mythology board.

Conchobar

Vorkosigan

Socrates never replies to these posts. I am working on the article he keeps harping on about observational and operations science. Maybe I'll submit it an infidels first and then paste it over at Theology Web. But I have to get a copy of Thaxton et al The Mystery of Life's Origins first. Hopefully the book exists in Taiwan.

Vorkosigan