Tribalgroove

You guys are arguing about causality, not correlation. Causality establishes an "if A, then B" relationship. Correlation only identifies ratios.

An example would be the correlation between lesbians and higher breast cancer rate. Certain bigoted groups look at the higher ratio, and conclude that being a lesbian causes higher cancer rate. The actual causes are related to not having children, no spousal access to health care for early detection and so forth... Thus, because lesbians frequently have these attributes, they have a higher cancer risk. But ANY women with these attributes would have a higher cancer risk.

Religion has been a part of every society since before recorded history. It has been present in every success and every failure. I think one would have a near impossible task to even determine a correlation, much less prove causality.

John Page

Sivakami:

I never said that greater religiousness in a society made it more successful. All the great civilizations, however, employed religions. I have acknowledged I don't have a scientific method to prove this - doesn't make it wrong though.

It seems to me as though you have elevated science and logic to the status of religions. They are tools through which to better understand our reality. They are tools devised by mankind and history shows such tools can be fallible. However, they do kick religion's butt.

I'm sure that prior to the emergence of scientific doctrine our ancestors employed methods that were similar. No disagreement there. In your view, are scientific methods and branches of logic, both recent innovations, continuing to develop?

brighid

Were they great because they were religious is the question - or were they great despite their religious nature?

Rome, one of the greatest empires we know of fell soon after it adopted Christianity as it's religion.

It also seems that many great civilizations perish despite their deeply religious nature - Inca's, Mayans etc.

Perhaps you should start off by defining the factors that make a civilization successful and from there it can be determined if those factors are religious in nature, independent of religiousness, or intertwined with it.

Brighid

Ms. Siv

An unfalsifiable hypothesis is veridically worthless (and no thats not original, I'm stealing Sagan's line). So tell me how your theory can be verified.

Isn't that a sort of oxymoron ? Religion is way down there for me. And science is way up there . So how can I elevate something to the status of a religion. Unless you mean space is curved and what goes down must come up ?!

Science is as old as life (or lets say, intelligent life).
There's nothing new about it.
IMO, civilizations advanced in proportion to their adoption of science. How can you verify this ?

Study the correlation between science ducation, science innovations and technology and the advancement of a civilization. I know thats just correlation .. but its the first step towards proving causation (we then need to eliminate common causes and other factors).

- Sivakami.

Ms. Siv

Well said.

And my point was that John wouldn't even be able to establish correlation, which is the first step towards establishing causation.

- Sivakami.

John Page

Sivikami:

Splitting hairs, but from the facts available to me I agree I cannot prove correlation/causation. However, by the same token, you have no basis on which to say that I wouldn't. There seems to be a concensus we don't have enough facts for a rigorous logical proof - this didn't stop the spread of religion though.

Pomp

John Page,

...from the facts available to me I agree I cannot prove correlation/causation. However, by the same token, you have no basis on which to say that I wouldn't.

True, but she doesn't have to. If you can't demonstrate even correlation, then your assertion that religiosity = greatness is dead in the water. A Sivakami and others have noted, the fact that all knwn societies have been religious, to one degree or another, makes it exceedingly difficult to gather the data that would allow you to show correlation. There simply isn't a control group.

There seems to be a concensus we don't have enough facts for a rigorous logical proof - this didn't stop the spread of religion though.

Forget the rigorous proof. We can't even get the data for a simple demonstration. This doesn't stop the spread of religion, but it does prevent us from concluding that religion spreads because it is beneficial to the societies that adopt it.

John Page

So, we're all agreed then.

And, hey, all I was trying to do was turn this into an argument about whether religion was beneficial on its merits (as opposed to being beneficial because of this god thingy). The fact that you can't tell me scientifically don't mean it ain't true.

And, hey, what if there were no hypothetical questions?

brighid

Argumentum ad ignorantiam
Argumentum ad ignorantiam means "argument from ignorance". The fallacy occurs when it's argued that something must be true, simply because it hasn't been proved false. Or, equivalently, when it is argued that something must be false because it hasn't been proved true.

(Note that this isn't the same as assuming something is false until it has been proved true. In law, for example, you're generally assumed innocent until proven guilty.)

Here are a couple of examples:

"Of course the Bible is true. Nobody can prove otherwise."

"Of course telepathy and other psychic phenomena do not exist. Nobody has shown any proof that they are real."

In scientific investigation, if it is known that an event would produce certain evidence of its having occurred, the absence of such evidence can validly be used to infer that the event didn't occur. It does not prove it with certainty, however.

For example:

"A flood as described in the Bible would require an enormous volume of water to be present on the earth. The earth doesn't have a tenth as much water, even if we count that which is frozen into ice at the poles. Therefore no such flood occurred."

It is, of course, possible that some unknown process occurred to remove the water. Good science would then demand a plausible testable theory to explain how it vanished.

Of course, the history of science is full of logically valid bad predictions. In 1893, the Royal Academy of Science were convinced by Sir Robert Ball that communication with the planet Mars was a physical impossibility, because it would require a flag as large as Ireland, which it would be impossible to wave.


[ Fortean Times Number 82.]

See also Shifting the Burden of Proof.

brighid

Shifting the burden of proof
The burden of proof is always on the person asserting something. Shifting the burden of proof, a special case of Argumentum ad Ignorantiam, is the fallacy of putting the burden of proof on the person who denies or questions the assertion. The source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise.
For further discussion of this idea, see the "Introduction to Atheism" document.
"OK, so if you don't think the grey aliens have gained control of the US government, can you prove it?"
<a href="http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html</a>

Brighid