Skeptical

empirical= capable of being detected through any of the 5 human senses or through instruments that applify any of those 5 senses

I'm not sure what could be empirical other than this.

I don't know that I ever used the word "absolute", I would accept as at least possible something that looked reasonable.

Ok, let's not say "worthless", let's say "the worth cannot be determined by someone else" or "of no utility to someone else".

This is the key point which I keep asking you do address, and perhaps I have not been clear in doing so. "Traditions" are not evidence. There have been "traditions" that:

-The earth is flat
-The earth is the center of the universe
-Diseases are caused by demons
-Bleeding people with leeches make them better
-The Sun and the moon are Gods
-There are witches everywhere who copulate with the devil on a regular basis
etc., etc. etc.

A tradition does not evidence make. Saying there is a "tradition" is just another way of saying that "people have thought for a while", which is just another way of saying "people have been of the opinion". At one time all of the opinions mentioned above were widely held to be true, yet I would be willing to bet that you don't subscribe to any of them.

All you are saying is that if a lot of people believe something then it must be true. Millions of people believed that torturing young children was ok if they were "witches". Did that make them correct? Millions believed the earth was flat. Millions believed that demons were responsible for disease. Thinking that "well, those were just old superstions" is just anachronism: "those people were wrong, but our _current_ assumptions are correct". Opinion is not evidence, it is opinion.

At a minimum, hundreds of thousands of people believe in Aliens. Why are they wrong and you are right?

As for an explanation of why something must be the way it is, I addressed this earlier but I'll say it again. There is no difference between these 2 statements:

1) That's just the way it is
2) That's just the way God did it/wants it

For any explanation for which you say "God did it", I can say "but why did he do it that way". You can then say "he did it to benefit us, etc", I can say, "but why did he want to benefit us", you can say "because he loves us", I can say "but why does he love us", etc. etc. At some point, you will eventually have to resort to either "that's just the way God wants it" or "I don't know why God wants it that way", which is just another way of saying "that's just the way it is".

With all due respect, in my opinion you have not addressed the question I asked. All you have said is that "tradition" says that God and Satan exist and Aliens, leprachauns, etc. don't. First, your wrong on the Aliens. "Tradition", which is another way of saying "lots of people believe it", holds that Aliens exist. Even if I granted you that you only had to choose between God and Satan, you didn't address at all how you would choose the cause _even between these two_.

If you say that the universe was made by God, I can assure you that I can give you a very reasoned argument as to why the universe was made by Satan. For every cause you claim "God did it", I can say "Satan did it". This is why I don't see what the value is in either of these explanations. The have equal explanatory value and neither one can be eliminated.

All you are saying is that opinions (traditions) count as evidence and your opinion is that God is a cause, which brings it all back around to my point that without empirical evidence, any claim to knowledge amounts to saying "I think this is the way it is". We know for a fact that opinions, even widely held ones, are often completely and utterly wrong. The only way we know this is through empirical evidence. History is full of cases showing that this is true, so I don't know why anyone would argue that we should value opinions over evidence.

[ September 13, 2002: Message edited by: Skeptical ]

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Skeptical

What is your empirical evidence for making this claim. Is there a scientifically controlled study you can reference, or is this just an a priori assumption on your part?

K

Vanderzyden:

Since you're forcing us to guess, I'd say you're an HTML programmer. I'm guessing you don't have a college degree. Are you going to tell us if we're right?

Starboy

To Whom It May Concern:

I have seen the term methodological naturalism thrown out as the philosophy of science. My guess is that the practice of science has been going on long before the term was coined. Why do philosophers think they understand the ways of science and why do philosophers wish to frame the activity in terms of philosophy? From my point of view science is not a philosophy but the culture of the scientific method.

Webster’s lists one of the meanings of philosophy as:

2 a : pursuit of wisdom b : a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means c : an analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs

This is my understanding of the word philosophy in this context. As such science is not philosophy or a philosophy. There can be a philosophy of science, but who cares? There can be a cuisine of science as well. The only study of science that I would respect is one conducted by scientists.

What the hell is methodological naturalism and why should science or scientists care about it?

Starboy

Albion

Well, I suppose philosophers seem to think thar anything involving thought must be part of philosophy. That clash between scientists and philosophers is what the science wars were about, isn't it?

Nevertheless, the way science is limited to searching for natural solutions to problems is part of its definition. I haven't seen reports that theorietical physicists are invoking supernatural explanations in their work, whatever their personal beliefs might be.

Vanderzyden

Welcome back Skeptical,

It's actually refreshing that you have returned, for I have just been in battle here!

My responses follow:

Please recall my "equation on the board" example.

OK, let's say "of no utility to someone else". Then your actions in this dialogue directly contradict that assertion. The only thoughts I'm having right now are focused on typing this reply. Would you consider that to be knowledge, and is it "useful" to you? Or, are you saying that the thoughts I'm investing in the participation here are of "no use" to you? Perhaps you will say that the printed words are useful, to which I will ask you to suggest the cause of those words. Further, I will ask you to refute the necessary causal relationship between my thoughts and the printed words. If this is your position, then please justify it.

But there is precious little justification for belief in aliens. There is no explanatory power behind UFO claims, despite the popular fascination. Where are the "scriptures" that refer to aliens?

Tradition is a term of convenience for our discussion. I would distinguish tradition from convention, upon which people merely agree (like the number 2, ).

No, I am not saying that widespread belief makes it true. My insistence is that many reasonable people have justifiably held the belief that God is there and that he has not been silent. It is not a matter of guessing about that which cannot possibly be known (such as the ancient belief of a flat earth), but rather finding convincing evidence. As I have said, many people--including myself--don't believe because it feels good. If I wanted to wish for a belief system, it wouldn't be anything like I find in the Bible. On the face of it, the idea of a crucified son-of-god is repugnant and fantastical, as it was to Marcus Aurelius. No, I believe because I have considered much of the evidence on several sides, and to a significant depth.

Leprechauns and aliens are not explained in reliably authentic historical documents that have been studied and accepted by many people throughout history. Such documents are not accepted not on blind speculation, but for good reasons. You minimize it as speculation because you claim that nothing can be known that isn't demonstrated to every person in every generation.


There is an immense difference: God is a person who exists, and "the way it is" is nothing. Intrinsically, "the way it is" is not a cause or an explanation of anything. Alternatively, God's characteristics and actions are causes.

History? What accounts do you accept?

Yes, I have tried to raise this before, and you dismissed it. What historical accounts do find reliable, Skeptical? Surely you don't consider them to be empirical, because historical records don't appear to fit your definitions.

You refer to historical facts, but then you selectively dismiss a particularly valuable historical document: the Bible. Now perhaps you will say this isn't a historical document. But this goes contrary to the work of thousands of scholars. Please explain why you accept some historical accounts and not others.


Vanderzyden

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Xixax

The cause of the words is inherently unknown to me. I did not see anyone type them. For all I -know-, you could be a computer program designed to come on this board and debate. The fact that your words are similar to those of another person, and that the way you express the ideas points to you being human doesn't mean I have to know that to interact or gain some use from them.

Think of it as if a program were designed to randomly generate sentences, and one of them happened to hold some meaning to you. The words hold the meaning; the random application plays no role in their meaning at all.

I cannot know what is going on inside your head any more than you can know what is going on inside mine. You can assume that my words are truthful, and that I am another person, but it's not something you can provide empirical evidence for that could not be explained away. Your motives are unknowable to everyone but you.

Does the age of the publication matter significantly enough to suddenly make the personal testimony of early christian writers more believable than those who currently write books on ufo encounters?

You are loading your question with the implication that somehow the words in the bible hold some intrinsic higher value than the words found in other books. Their value must be weighed equally beside those who write about alien abductions. Do we have any real evidence that God exists? No. None that doesn't devolved into the circular argument of "Creation proves the creator". I would say they are not particularly reliable historical documents when it comes to explaining scientific material. I won't bother to get into the examples again, but the bible contains numerous scientific errors.

As far as the spiritual information found in the bible, it isn't true for me. That doesn't mean I discount it as untrue for everyone, because again we delve into the realm of what is unknowable by someone other than the one having that experience. I, by default, highly doubt the claim of anyone saying they had such an experience, but their motives are unknowable. Perhaps they truly believe they experienced something, maybe they are finding some personal benefit in suddenly having a link with a higher authority... only they know.


I don't agree it's justifiable. Unless you count someone lacking understanding of the natural world and resorting to calls to the supernatural justifiable. You must provide proof of its justification before stating that.

Heaven forbid you forget to mention the significant depth of your consideration ( I think we have ample evidence of the comprehensive ability you display when considering evidence, your emphasis is not necessary )

No, it's minimized because it's not demonstrable to anyone in this generation. If the supernatural were somehow brought to a point where it could be empirically tested, it would cease to be supernatural.

Ahem. So..... we're just supposed to take your word for it on God existing? Many people here are waiting for proof of his existence. Testimony != proof.

The rest of your immense difference hinges on that alone.

I know I'm not skeptical ( well, not 'the' skeptical ), but I'm still going to answer this as well.

You are again loading the statement with your own opinion on the value of the bible. I do not find the bible particularly valuable when considering issues of science. Its reliability is demonstrably unstable on issues of science.

If you were asking whether or not it's valuable as a source for the history of the Jewish people, then my answer would be it is valuable. It should obviously be taken in context of the persons who authored the documents, as their view is extremely biased. However, when taken comparatively with other contemporary writings, it does provide useful information.

You seem to be trying to assert that because someone cannot demonstrate a historical event, that anyone who requires empirical evidence cannot regard that as reliable. That's completely untrue. You can ask several questions:

1) Is the event reasonable? ( i.e., does it contain things like giants and dragons, or one man slaying millions with a magic wand )

2) Is the document the event is detailed in filled with other unreasonable events? ( a story of a man cooking a great loaf of bread is reasonable, but probably untrue if it says he is making the bread in his giant beanstalk )

3) Are there other corroborating peices of evidence for the event? Buildings or artifacts of any kind to support it?

On and on it goes, but there is a reasonable way in which to test whether something can be considered reliable from an empirical point of view. Of course, without being able to witness the event, you must leave open some doubt, but no more doubt than is reasonable. For instance, if you drop a coin from a building, you should have very little doubt it will fall to the ground.

However, if you walk up to the Atlantic Ocean and begin to pray for God to part the waters so you can walk to Africa or Europe, I would hope your doubt is soaring.

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MrKrinkles

Now that it is being implied that the Christian bible is a reliable and trustworthy document, I thought I would paste some comments on this subject from former minister Dan Barker:
<a href="http://www.ffrf.org/lfif/refute.html" target="_blank">http://www.ffrf.org/lfif/refute.html</a>

Supernatural claims in ancient stories tend to discredit these stories as factual and accurate accounts.

Brooks

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Starboy

A long time ago I was a practicing experimental physicist, I don't ever recall anyone saying, natural explanations only! It was understood that whatever you came up with would be useless if it could not result in an experiment and it was implicitly understood that anything detected by experiment was natural. It is not because of some unwritten restriction to natural explanations that scientists limit themselves, it is a limitation imposed by the requirement to verify by experiment. Nature is the judge and jury of any scientific idea if there is no experiment there is no science. This is the reason why scientists all over the world can do science with good agreement with no human central authority, science has a central authority and it is nature.

Before any of you pipe up about far out theoretical constructs in thirteen dimensions and so forth, I want to point out that until there is experiment verifying such ideas they are only scientific speculation and not scientific knowledge.

I can see why a philosopher would get this wrong since experiment plays little to no part in what they do. I suspect they look down on it and dismiss it with some sort of philosophical shrug. But I don't care, I am not a philosopher, would never want to be. I am a scientist. I say forget about the term metaphysical or methodological naturalism, it doesn’t begin to express what science is.

Starboy

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Blinn

Sorry to be so bitchy, but E/C is always my first hit when I come to IIs, and I still don't see what this thread has to do with evolution. Can we move it...puuhhlleeassssseee?