Dogmatic Skeptics

[liamconnor]

Here is a (rather lengthy) quote from G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy:

Somehow or other an extraordinary idea has arisen that the disbelievers in miracles consider them coldly and fairly, while believers in miracles accept them only in connection with some dogma. The fact is quite the other way. The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them. The open, obvious, democratic thing is to believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a miracle, just as you believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a murder. The plain, popular course is to trust the peasant's word about the ghost exactly as far as you trust the peasant's word about the landlord. Being a peasant he will probably have a great deal of healthy agnosticism about both. Still you could fill the British Museum with evidence uttered by the peasant, and given in favour of the ghost. If it comes to human testimony there is a choking cataract of human testimony in favour of the supernatural. If you reject it, you can only mean one of two things. You reject the peasant's story about the ghost either because the man is a peasant or because the story is a ghost story. That is, you either deny the main principle of democracy, or you affirm the main principle of materialism-- the abstract impossibility of miracle. You have a perfect right to do so; but in that case you are the dogmatist. It is we Christians who accept all actual evidence--it is you rationalists who refuse actual evidence being constrained to do so by your creed. But I am not constrained by any creed in the matter, and looking impartially into certain miracles of mediaeval and modern times, I have come to the conclusion that they occurred. All argument against these plain facts is always argument in a circle. If I say, "Mediaeval documents attest certain miracles as much as they attest certain battles," they answer, "But mediaevals were superstitious"; if I want to know in what they were superstitious, the only ultimate answer is that they believed in the miracles. If I say "a peasant saw a ghost," I am told, "But peasants are so credulous." If I ask, "Why credulous?" the only answer is--that they see ghosts. Iceland is impossible because only stupid sailors have seen it; and the sailors are only stupid because they say they have seen Iceland. It is only fair to add that there is another argument that the unbeliever may rationally use against miracles, though he himself generally forgets to use it.

Do you agree or disagree with the thesis that Naturalists are dogmatic about their exclusion of the miraculous?

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 8 by Bust Nak]

Have you personally seen empirical evidence that atoms consist of protons etc, that black holes exist, that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, that Everest is the tallest mountain and that your biological grandparents were who you thought?

I realize that you were responding to Bust Nak, but I found your questions interesting and would like to give my response to them.

Let's take one thing at a time.

Have I personally seen that atoms consist of protons etc. Not directly no. But then again is it really important to have that specific picture in your mind? I don't think so. I have performed many chemistry experiments in the lab that show indirectly that the atomic theory is at least correct in principle. Whether actual protons exist is actually quite irrelevant. The "Atomic Theory" works. So even if we have the wrong picture in our mind, the idea behind the picture is clearly true.

So it doesn't really matter whether 'protons' exist. All that really matters is that chemistry works if we assume that protons exist. Therefore something very akin to protons must necessarily exist.

Have I seen empirical evidence that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Again, no not directly. However I have seen enough evidence from independent sources (along with detailed explanations of how they obtained their results and why their results can be trusted) to know that only one of two things can be true:

1. Scientists actually know what they are doing (because their explanations make perfect sense)

OR

2. Scientists are all in cahoots to pull the wool over the eyes of the general public an a major very well-organized secretive conspiracy.

In fact, I'm convinced via simple logic that in order for #2 to be true, huge numbers of the general public would need to be in on the scam in order for it to actually work and not be exposed.

In short, I would need to be an extreme paranoid to believe that basically every person on earth is out to fool lil' ol me.

I think I would need to be pretty arrogant too, to think that I could be so special that so many people would be in on a scam just to fool me.

Plus they would need to be REALLY GOOD at it because their explanations make PERFECT SENSE!

In other words, every scientist and vast numbers of average people would need to not only be in on the scam, but they would all need to basically be geniuses who are fully aware of the scam they are supporting.

I would need to be EXTREMELY paranoid, and arrogant, to believe such a scenario.

Same thing goes for the tallest mountain and who my real grandparents were. Again I would need to be extremely paranoid and arrogant to think that the whole world is out to fool little old me. And what would be their reason?

Or in the case of 90+% of the things you believe to be true, do you accept the testimony of other people and the reliability of the information and images they convey?

The reliability of the information they convey is a big one for me. Scientific explanations for things make sense. In fact, you can go into a lab and tests at least 90% of all scientific claims. The ones that you bring up like the existence of black holes would be far less than 10% of what science claims to know.

So you can test at least 90% of what science has to say yourself. And the only way you could be fooled there is if the laboratories you are using are also purposefully rigged. The scam required to make science a lie would be immense.

I've spent the better part of my life performing scientific experiments in labs. Partly in college, partly at home in my own basement. And then again in my careers which were mainly in Research and Development where I was often designing my own experiments from scratch.

If scientific knowledge is a scam someone would have had to have been watching over me 24/7 to make sure that all my experiments came out correctly via their SCAM. They couldn't leave me alone lest I would discover the scam.

The way I reason it is as follows:
- For most of my knowledge, I depend on other sources of information

I can understand your reason to doubt information then. I questioned and tested everything.

But even if you rely on other sources don't you think an awful lot of people would need to be pulling your leg in cahoots with each other in an effort to fool you?

And what about things like GPS systems, and Nuclear Power Plants, etc. Are all those things just faked in order to trick you into thinking that science actually works?

- Any single source of information has a non-zero possibility of being incorrect
- Multiple converging sources have a much smaller possibility of all being incorrect
- Information can be considered reliable relative to the breadth and unanimity of the sources confirming it

So what's the probability that 90% of the world's population is in secret cahoots to pull the wool over your eyes?

And to do it with EXCELLENT LOGICALLY CONSISTENT EXPLANATIONS?

While there are more nuances to it than that, broadly speaking I simply don't see any other rational, coherent justification for the way we function and accumulate knowledge (particularly in the 21st century). If you or anyone else can think of something, I'm all ears.

Labs are still available in the 21st century for those who would like to check results for themselves.

Just because a large number of youth today are too lazy to do their homework is no excuse to blame that on the 21st century. The homework is available to them if they care to bother doing it.

And don't forget that if science is wrong, GPS systems, Nuclear Power Plants, even cell phones, computers, jumbo jets, etc. Would all need to be faked.

But otherwise, it is a conclusion of that epistemological approach that reported observations of phenomena which are confirmed by multiple, independent sources must be considered seriously rather than simply dismissing 'testimony' in favour of an arbitrary criteria of empirical evidence which we don't apply to any other knowledge we acquire. Which maybe means that we shouldn't profess to "know" that alien abductions don't occur. It means that maybe some of our certainty about the world and our place in it should be dialed back a notch.

I personally don't claim to "know" that alien abductions don't occur. I simply point out that I have yet to see any credible evidence that they have occurred.

Could they have occurred and I don't know about. Sure. But just because that's within the realm of possibility is no reason for me to run around like Chicken Little screaming "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

I'm going to need more evidence than just a few rumors.

It does not mean that we have to be credulous fools who believe in goblins and fairies on the presumption that a dozen people have claimed to see them: But where the available evidence is really quite compelling (eg. the medically-unexplained rapid cures of serious illnesses thoroughly documented at Lourdes) we should recognize that there's a fairly high probability that some or many of these are genuine 'miracles' even if that doesn't sit too easily with an existing metaphysical perspective.

Even so, science itself allows for these so-called "miraculous" recoveries. Just because they happen infrequently and even the doctors involved can't explain them doesn't make them "miracles".

Don't forget, there are still huge questions concerning these so-called miracles. Like if they were performed by a God why just that particular person? Does this God play favorites?

A Jumbo Jet crashes and 235 people are killed. There is ONE survivor who even walks away with hardly a scratch.

A miracle? Hardly. Just a very luck individual. Just happened to be in the right seat when the plane crashed.

Not only that, but if a God did it, then why that person? What about all the other people on the plane? Where was their miracle?

I just see no reason to jump to supernatural conclusions every time something extremely rare happens.

~~~~~

Finally let's compare science with religion:

Scientists give extremely well-detailed logically sound rational explanations for what they do. PLUS they then make predictions that also can be shown to be true. PLUS their information can be used to build technological devices that WORK. They create medicines and vaccines that actually WORK.

What do religions do? They offer stories that don't even make any sense. They offer stories that are extremely illogical and self-contradictory. They offer prayers and traditions that don't work. Their texts make prophesy predictions that don't come true. "Pray to me and I'll do anything you ask". Yeah right.

There's nothing there with religions. No comparison.

[Mithrae]

Or in the case of 90+% of the things you believe to be true, do you accept the testimony of other people and the reliability of the information and images they convey?

The reliability of the information they convey is a big one for me. Scientific explanations for things make sense. In fact, you can go into a lab and tests at least 90% of all scientific claims. The ones that you bring up like the existence of black holes would be far less than 10% of what science claims to know.

So you can test at least 90% of what science has to say yourself. And the only way you could be fooled there is if the laboratories you are using are also purposefully rigged. The scam required to make science a lie would be immense.

The assumption that we could go out and personally test every bit of information if we wanted to is an extremely limited argument at best. It takes years of study to gain a sound understanding of any particular scientific field. The fact is that most people simply do not have the intelligence or aptitude to do so; most people who do have the ability will still never have the time or inclination; and most people who do have the ability and the inclination to pursue a scientific field will still only become proficient enough to personally confirm conclusions in their own field, not in others.

I'm a bright enough fellow and if I asked the right people nicely enough perhaps I could gain access to a chemistry lab - though there's a big enough question mark over that to begin with - and with my recollections of high school chemistry I could follow along in a monkey see, monkey do kind of way on whatever experiment a professional advises to 'confirm' some particular point or other. But would I actually understand what I'm doing well enough to know that there aren't alternative explanations of the results? Would I even know that the chemicals I'm using are what I've been told to begin with? Without actually going through years of formal education, it would be dubious enough to suppose that even some specific point would be meaningfully confirmed by such a DIY approach, let alone all the other thousands of facts in that particular field.

And this is thinking only about the universal claims of physics or chemistry. What about the things we 'know' about elephants and penguins and plankton? What about the things we 'know' about Warsaw and Jakarta and Buenos Aires? What about the things we 'know' about Gandhi and Hitler and Darwin?

Truth be told, it's probably more like 99+% of our knowledge that we depend on others' testimony. And you're right: It is simply the numbers of sources confirming each point of information which in the best cases make it virtually impossible that they're all incorrect or deceptive.

[Divine Insight]

The assumption that we could go out and personally test every bit of information if we wanted to is an extremely limited argument at best.

I totally disagree. Scientific knowledge is accessible to anyone who cares to look into it. It's simply not necessary to do an experiment for every possible case. It only requires doing enough experiments to verify the general principles. For example, you don't need to prove F=ma on every single object in the universe. You only need to demonstrate it exists on a few random examples. What's the probability that it's only going to hold true for the few random examples that you freely choose and not for anything else?

I mean, it's not cheating to use a little common sense.

Not only that, but it's actually quite challenging to try to think of situations where you think it might not hold true, and then do those experiments. Trying to prove it wrong is the best way to convince yourself that it's futile to do so.

It takes years of study to gain a sound understanding of any particular scientific field.

Absolute baloney. You can gain a sound understanding of the major fields of study easily. You may not have earned the college degrees that people demand that you should have. But trust me, you don't need to earn a college degree to have a sound understanding of any particular scientific field.

When I was in college I took every major course in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Granted I was seriously lacking credits in History, Psychology, Social Studies, and the Arts, etc. And I was getting yelled at all the time because of that nonsense.

But don't tell me that it's not possible to study these things if a person really wants to. And if they don't want to they have no business complaining that they don't believe the knowledge of the sciences. Disinterest or lack of trying hardly qualifies a person to be expert enough to renounce the sciences.

Yet that's basically what you're suggesting.

The fact is that most people simply do not have the intelligence or aptitude to do so;

I don't buy it. And beside, if I did buy then all these people are doing is confessing that they aren't very intelligent right?

So after confessing that they aren't very intelligent they aren't in much of a position to be questioning the sciences.

These are the kinds of arguments that are self-defeating.

most people who do have the ability will still never have the time or inclination;

Again, hogwash. They have to spend just as much time in high school and college as anyone else. And if they haven't done that than then see my previous reply above.

and most people who do have the ability and the inclination to pursue a scientific field will still only become proficient enough to personally confirm conclusions in their own field, not in others.

Again absolute baloney. There are many scientists who are well-versed in many different scientific fields.

I will agree with you when it comes to professional careers and keeping up with the cutting edge of science within a given field. But that's hardly the same as merely being proficient in a field. Not only that, but to become a "leader" in field (which is most likely what you are actually referring too) they need to earn a Ph.D. in the field, plus have experience working in the fields, etc. Of course, in those situations they aren't going to have time to keep up with much else.

But the fact is that you don't need to be a cutting-edge expert Ph.D. in a field just to have a basic understand of the core principles and known evidence.

You argument is basically saying, "If I'm not a cutting-edge cosmologist working in the field everyday, then how can I trust Newton's F=ma?".

That's just baloney.

I'm a bright enough fellow and if I asked the right people nicely enough perhaps I could gain access to a chemistry lab - though there's a big enough question mark over that to begin with - and with my recollections of high school chemistry I could follow along in a monkey see, monkey do kind of way on whatever experiment a professional advises to 'confirm' some particular point or other. But would I actually understand what I'm doing well enough to know that there aren't alternative explanations of the results?

Well, you can't just walk in a chemistry lab and expect to understand experiments if you haven't even taken any basic courses in chemistry. You are supposed to know what you are doing BEFORE you do the experiments.

Would I even know that the chemicals I'm using are what I've been told to begin with?

And now we're talking about paranoia again. Why think that the chemists are out to purposefully scam you? That's paranoia.

The idea that scientists are a huge group of secret conspirators pretending to know how things work just to fool religious people into becoming atheists is pretty absurd don't you think?

Yet that's pretty much what you would need to believe if you can't even trust the chemists to give you the right chemicals.

Without actually going through years of formal education, it would be dubious enough to suppose that even some specific point would be meaningfully confirmed by such a DIY approach, let alone all the other thousands of facts in that particular field.

I agree, if a person never had any interest in the sciences and focused entirely on the arts and humanities, then they most likely aren't going to have a clue about the sciences. But if that's the case, then they aren't in any position to be suggesting that science is a scam or even run by a bunch of scientific idiots who can't really figure anything out. In fact, you just argued a moment ago that a person needs to be more intelligent than average to even become a scientist.

So yes, if you missed out on studying the sciences in high school and college chances are it's going to seem quite overwhelming now.

But if that's the case, then why question the validity of science?

And this is thinking only about the universal claims of physics or chemistry. What about the things we 'know' about elephants and penguins and plankton? What about the things we 'know' about Warsaw and Jakarta and Buenos Aires? What about the things we 'know' about Gandhi and Hitler and Darwin?

Truth be told, it's probably more like 99+% of our knowledge that we depend on others' testimony. And you're right: It is simply the numbers of sources confirming each point of information which in the best cases make it virtually impossible that they're all incorrect or deceptive.

All I can say to your above comments is that if what you know about Warsaw, Jakarta, Buenos Aires, Gandhi, Hitler, and even Darwin was all wrong, it wouldn't change a thing.

However, if the universal claims of physics and chemistry are wrong, then our computers, cell phones, GPS systems, Nuclear power plants, Jumbo Jets, MRI and other medical equipment would also be a big lie and not work.

But guess what?

They do work.

So science can't be wrong, even if Hitler, Gandhi, and Darwin never existed.

Evolution doesn't depend on Darwin. He was just the first to realize that evolution is how we got here.

Science can't be wrong. Our technologies simply wouldn't work if it was.

Do you need to have a Ph.D. in logic to figure that one out?

History could be all wrong and it wouldn't make a diddly squat difference.

But if science is wrong our entire technological society could not exist.

[Mithrae]

But don't tell me that it's not possible to study these things if a person really wants to. And if they don't want to they have no business complaining that they don't believe the knowledge of the sciences. Disinterest or lack of trying hardly qualifies a person to be expert enough to renounce the sciences.

Yet that's basically what you're suggesting.

I'm going to largely ignore this *ahem* tirade of yours, because that is absolutely nothing like what I suggested. Insulting and patronising though it's been, I still hope that your misunderstanding was at least an honest one.

The fact is that overwhelmingly most of the things we know - about our family and friends, about current events, geography, history, economics, the sciences - are known not because we have specifically acquired empirical evidence of them but because we accept others' testimony as a valid source of information.

The only people who imagine that this fact somehow implies illegitimacy in all that knowledge are (apparently) you and (if he took his dismissal of testimony to its logical conclusion) Bust Nak. I don't think that Bust Nak actually holds that view of course; so in contrast to some blanket or arbitrary dismissal of testimonial evidence, I instead clearly laid out the sound logical basis on which we do accept what others tell us (and against which an arbitrary dismissal in the case of 'miracles' would be special pleading): Basically, that confirmation from multiple sources dramatically reduces the likelihood that they are all mistaken or deceptive. You even fully agreed with that reasoning in various comments in your earlier post.

So how you got from that to talking about "renouncing the sciences" is quite a mystery to me, but ultimately not my problem

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Here is a (rather lengthy) quote from G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy:

Somehow or other an extraordinary idea has arisen that the disbelievers in miracles consider them coldly and fairly, while believers in miracles accept them only in connection with some dogma. The fact is quite the other way. The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them. The open, obvious, democratic thing is to believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a miracle, just as you believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a murder. The plain, popular course is to trust the peasant's word about the ghost exactly as far as you trust the peasant's word about the landlord. Being a peasant he will probably have a great deal of healthy agnosticism about both. Still you could fill the British Museum with evidence uttered by the peasant, and given in favour of the ghost. If it comes to human testimony there is a choking cataract of human testimony in favour of the supernatural. If you reject it, you can only mean one of two things. You reject the peasant's story about the ghost either because the man is a peasant or because the story is a ghost story. That is, you either deny the main principle of democracy, or you affirm the main principle of materialism-- the abstract impossibility of miracle. You have a perfect right to do so; but in that case you are the dogmatist. It is we Christians who accept all actual evidence--it is you rationalists who refuse actual evidence being constrained to do so by your creed. But I am not constrained by any creed in the matter, and looking impartially into certain miracles of mediaeval and modern times, I have come to the conclusion that they occurred. All argument against these plain facts is always argument in a circle. If I say, "Mediaeval documents attest certain miracles as much as they attest certain battles," they answer, "But mediaevals were superstitious"; if I want to know in what they were superstitious, the only ultimate answer is that they believed in the miracles. If I say "a peasant saw a ghost," I am told, "But peasants are so credulous." If I ask, "Why credulous?" the only answer is--that they see ghosts. Iceland is impossible because only stupid sailors have seen it; and the sailors are only stupid because they say they have seen Iceland. It is only fair to add that there is another argument that the unbeliever may rationally use against miracles, though he himself generally forgets to use it.

Do you agree or disagree with the thesis that Naturalists are dogmatic about their exclusion of the miraculous?

Are you dogmatic about your disbelief in Santa Claus? Or has it become obvious that the Santa story is too silly to spend any time on?

[Divine Insight]

The fact is that overwhelmingly most of the things we know - about our family and friends, about current events, geography, history, economics, the sciences - are known not because we have specifically acquired empirical evidence of them but because we accept others' testimony as a valid source of information.

Is it not also true that we later discover that many of those things were actually lies created to hide skeletons hanging in the family closet?

I had a "double-cousin" I grew up with. His mother was my father's sister, and his father was my mother's brother. We lived that lie for almost 50 years before the truth was revealed. It turned out that my mother's brother wasn't actually my cousin's father. My father's sister had actually gotten pregnant before she met my mother's brother and married him without telling him. Even HE didn't know the secret! He though my cousin was his own son. He died never even knowing the truth.

So the FACT is that the overwhelming things we take for granted from other's testimonies isn't always the truth.

The only people who imagine that this fact somehow implies illegitimacy in all that knowledge are (apparently) you and (if he took his dismissal of testimony to its logical conclusion) Bust Nak. I don't think that Bust Nak actually holds that view of course; so in contrast to some blanket or arbitrary dismissal of testimonial evidence, I instead clearly laid out the sound logical basis on which we do accept what others tell us (and against which an arbitrary dismissal in the case of 'miracles' would be special pleading): Basically, that confirmation from multiple sources dramatically reduces the likelihood that they are all mistaken or deceptive. You even fully agreed with that reasoning in various comments in your earlier post.

Sorry, but consider the story I just told you:

Imagine if my aunt (my father's sister) was actually 8 months pregnant when she met my mother's brother. Do thing any sane reasonable person would believe that she simply went on a diet, suddenly lost weight the day she gave birth to my mother's brother's child after having only known him for ONE MONTH?

That is what you would need to expect people to believe if you want them to take miracles for granted.

So how you got from that to talking about "renouncing the sciences" is quite a mystery to me, but ultimately not my problem

To even question the validity of the science like as if it can be placed on the same playing field as unverified testimony of miraculous events, is precisely the same as "renouncing the sciences".

You're at least renouncing the "credibility" of the sciences when you do that.

You're basically trying to make an equivalency of credibility between totally unverified testimony of unrealistic tales, with the verified and peer-reviewed hard work of scientists.

Not only is the science peer-reviewed and verified, but it also often make predictions that can also be verified, and it produces technologies that work that cannot be denied.

How in the world can you even begin to try to pretend that these two things could be put on the same level playing field when talking about credibility?

And that has to be what you are suggesting. Otherwise what's your point about believing in the testimony of unverified individual claims?

Why are we talking about the reliability of unverified testimony of individual claims and the reliability of scientific knowledge in the same thread if comparing the two is not the whole point?

There is no comparison.

Scientific knowledge wins hands down.

The unverified testimony of individual claims has no credibility at all. They could simply be mistake. They could be outright lying. The could be passing on rumors that they heard but haven't verified themselves. There are a lot of reasons to doubt what they have to say.

And this is especially true if they are making extraordinary claims.

Have you heard? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Even scientists understand this and recognize when they are going to need to provide some extraordinary evidence to support their hypotheses.

Look at Einstein's Relativity as a great example. Extraordinary claims. No one wanted to believe him at first. Until the extraordinary evidence showed up to verify it.

Even in the sciences no one takes personal testimony seriously. You need to prove your claims. Or at least provide compelling evidence for them.

There's just no comparison with personal testimony. Humans are known to fib, exaggerate, and even outright lie.

[Bust Nak]

Have you personally seen empirical evidence that...

There it is, right off the bat, an attempt to pass off empirical evidence produced by others as being on the same level as testimonies.

To answer your question, yes, to protons and old Earth, no to the others.

do you accept the testimony of other people and the reliability of the information and images they convey?

When they are consistent with empirical evidence, then maybe. When they can back up their claims with empirical evidence, sure.

Now, would you like me to answers the these points again, altered to ask "Is there empirical evidence for..." atoms consist of protons and so on?

The way I reason it is as follows:
- For most of my knowledge, I depend on other sources of information
- Any single source of information has a non-zero possibility of being incorrect
- Multiple converging sources have a much smaller possibility of all being incorrect
- Information can be considered reliable relative to the breadth and unanimity of the sources confirming it

While there are more nuances to it than that, broadly speaking I simply don't see any other rational, coherent justification for the way we function and accumulate knowledge (particularly in the 21st century). If you or anyone else can think of something, I'm all ears.

Let me suggest you rely heavily on empirical evidence then, or is empirical evidence produced by others included as "other sources if information?"

But otherwise, it is a conclusion of that epistemic approach that reported observations of phenomena which are confirmed by multiple, independent sources must be considered seriously rather than simply dismissing 'testimony' in favour of an arbitrary criteria of empirical evidence which we don't apply to any other knowledge we acquire.

The question is, who is this "we" who don't apply the criteria of empirical evidence to knowledge we acquire? Granted if you are put on the spot and have to make a decision there and then about which of two claims to trust with no quick way to check empirically, but why wouldn't you always go with what the empirical evidence says when you can?

More to the point do you really think say, a published paper that you have not personally verified, is on par with a testimony?

Which maybe means that we shouldn't profess to "know" that alien abductions don't occur. It means that maybe some of our certainty about the world and our place in it should be dialed back a notch.

Or just admit to being incorrect, when there is empirical evidence for those alien abduction claims?

It does not mean that we have to be credulous fools who believe in goblins and fairies on the presumption that a dozen people have claimed to see them: But where the available evidence is really quite compelling...

But there are so many testimonies of fairies on the internet, far more than the dozen you think (to my surprise.) What can be more compelling than empirical evidence?

(eg. the medically-unexplained rapid cures of serious illnesses thoroughly documented at Lourdes) we should recognize that there's a fairly high probability that some or many of these are genuine 'miracles' even if that doesn't sit too easily with an existing metaphysical perspective.

If it "miracles" are real, then they are material, and hence fits into materialism just fine.

[Mithrae]

That is what you would need to expect people to believe if you want them to take miracles for granted.

Please show where I have ever said that people should take miracles for granted.

To even question the validity of the science like as if it can be placed on the same playing field as unverified testimony of miraculous events, is precisely the same as "renouncing the sciences".

Please show where I have ever said that unverified testimony of anything can be placed on the same playing field as science.


As I already indicated in my previous post, I am simply not going to bother with these pathetic strawmen you are trying to attribute to me.

[Mithrae]

Have you personally seen empirical evidence that...

There it is, right off the bat, an attempt to pass off empirical evidence produced by others as being on the same level as testimonies.

Where the heck are you guys getting all this "on the same level" nonsense? This is black and white thinking at its worst; what, either someone must believe that miracle testimonies have zero evidentiary value or else you think they're asserting them to be equal to science? I thought that you were better than that, Bust Nak

To answer your question, yes, to protons and old Earth, no to the others.

do you accept the testimony of other people and the reliability of the information and images they convey?

When they are consistent with empirical evidence, then maybe. When they can back up their claims with empirical evidence, sure.

Now, would you like me to answers the these points again, altered to ask "Is there empirical evidence for..." atoms consist of protons and so on?

If you haven't seen empirical evidence for black holes, Everest, your grandparents and so on, then your answers to "Is there empirical evidence..." would simply be a statement of what you have read/heard from others. And obviously in many cases the answer would still be no: There is currently no empirical evidence that the people I know as my parents are biological relatives. In the case of dead relatives, for all intents and purposes there can't even be any such empirical evidence even if I had a mind to seek it. No doubt the same is true in your case - so do you disbelieve those claims of relationship due to the absence of empirical evidence, or do you accept the testimonial evidence?

Do you disbelieve claims that Charles Darwin wrote Origin of Species, since there remains no empirical evidence for that either, or do you accept the testimonial evidence?

The way I reason it is as follows:
- For most of my knowledge, I depend on other sources of information
- Any single source of information has a non-zero possibility of being incorrect
- Multiple converging sources have a much smaller possibility of all being incorrect
- Information can be considered reliable relative to the breadth and unanimity of the sources confirming it

While there are more nuances to it than that, broadly speaking I simply don't see any other rational, coherent justification for the way we function and accumulate knowledge (particularly in the 21st century). If you or anyone else can think of something, I'm all ears.

Let me suggest you rely heavily on empirical evidence then, or is empirical evidence produced by others included as "other sources if information?"

But otherwise, it is a conclusion of that epistemic approach that reported observations of phenomena which are confirmed by multiple, independent sources must be considered seriously rather than simply dismissing 'testimony' in favour of an arbitrary criteria of empirical evidence which we don't apply to any other knowledge we acquire.

The question is, who is this "we" who don't apply the criteria of empirical evidence to knowledge we acquire? Granted if you are put on the spot and have to make a decision there and then about which of two claims to trust with no quick way to check empirically, but why wouldn't you always go with what the empirical evidence says when you can?

Certainly - when you can. But that covers perhaps 1% of the things you know. What about the other 99%?

What is the largest land animal?
What is the largest animal?
In what regions are rhinos indigenous?
- What is Antarctica like?
- What is the Sahara like?
- What is Siberia like?
Roughly how many people live in the USA?
What are a few of the world's biggest cities?
Which country has the largest population?
- When was the American Civil War?
- Who were the main belligerents in WW2?
- Which European country first colonized Australia?

These are simple questions which we could probably all answer off the top of our heads, but unless one of us happens to have visited Siberia or the Sahara I doubt that any of us have empirical evidence to support those answers. Maybe you think that you have seen empirical evidence for 10% of the things you know instead of 1%, but surely you are not honestly going to pretend that it is anything other than a tiny fraction?

More to the point do you really think say, a published paper that you have not personally verified, is on par with a testimony?

No, I don't think that as a general rule On the other hand peer-reviewed papers do often contain errors, unreproducible results, misleading rhetoric or sometimes even outright fraud. So there are some people I know whose testimony I would consider more reliable than a randomly-selected published paper.

Which maybe means that we shouldn't profess to "know" that alien abductions don't occur. It means that maybe some of our certainty about the world and our place in it should be dialed back a notch.

Or just admit to being incorrect, when there is empirical evidence for those alien abduction claims?

Given the fact that you accept testimonial evidence for 90+% of the things you know and believe, surely you can see how it is special pleading to dismiss testimonial evidence out of hand in some particular instances like this?

The availability of some empirical evidence - and there is some empirical evidence in the case of some UFO sightings at least - doesn't make something automatically certain or even necessarily all that believable, I'm sure you'll agree. Evidence is simply the body of available facts and information against which we compare hypotheses' plausibility, and in most cases this single bit of evidence or that single bit of evidence will not make or break a theory.

So the empirical evidence regarding UFOs is extremely weak. The testimonial evidence is quite weak too. But such testimonies are evidence: The large number of such reports make the alien visitation hypothesis considerably more plausible than if those reports did not exist at all. Don't they?

In fact by far the biggest problem with alien visitation (and especially alleged abductions) is simply that it doesn't mesh with our expectations; it simply doesn't make sense that an interstellar species would be so interested in secrecy and probing our posteriors. We think that if there were aliens visiting Earth, we'd hear more about it.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this: Do you really apply the special pleading of denying testimonial evidence in specific cases like this, despite accepting it for the overwhelming majority of other things you know? Or on reflection would be more partial towards my opinion that while the evidence is weak - too weak, in light of what we'd expect if alien visitation were true - the existence of those numerous testimonies does increase the plausibility of the visitation hypothesis compared with their absence?

[Bust Nak]

Where the heck are you guys getting all this "on the same level" nonsense? This is black and white thinking at its worst; what, either someone must believe that miracle testimonies have zero evidentiary value or else you think they're asserting them to be equal to science?

If the implication wasn't there, then why did you ask me if I have personally verified it, as opposed to just asking me if there was empirical evidence for it?

I thought that you were better than that, Bust Nak

I don't think the problem is on my side.

If you haven't seen empirical evidence for black holes, Everest, your grandparents and so on, then your answers to "Is there empirical evidence..." would simply be a statement of what you have read/heard from others.

There you go again! Empirical evidence I read about is simply a testimony. How is this not exactly what I was charging you with re: on the same level?

And obviously in many cases the answer would still be no: There is currently no empirical evidence that the people I know as my parents are biological relatives. In the case of dead relatives, for all intents and purposes there can't even be any such empirical evidence even if I had a mind to seek it. No doubt the same is true in your case - so do you disbelieve those claims of relationship due to the absence of empirical evidence, or do you accept the testimonial evidence?

Same answer as before, maybe, if it is consistent with empirical evidence, and yes if it is backed up with empirical evidence.

Do you disbelieve claims that Charles Darwin wrote Origin of Species, since there remains no empirical evidence for that either, or do you accept the testimonial evidence?

No, I do not disbelieve that. I accept testimonial evidence.

Certainly - when you can. But that covers perhaps 1% of the things you know. What about the other 99%?

But much of that 99% is still backed with empirical evidence that I read or heard about from others.

What is the largest land animal?

...

These are simple questions which we could probably all answer off the top of our heads, but unless one of us happens to have visited Siberia or the Sahara I doubt that any of us have empirical evidence to support those answers.

What's wrong with an annual weather report as collected by the various meteorological agency as empirical evidence? What's wrong with the census report for population claims? The historical claims is at worse consistent with empirical evidence, and often backed with scientific data like radiometric dating.

Maybe you think that you have seen empirical evidence for 10% of the things you know instead of 1%, but surely you are not honestly going to pretend that it is anything other than a tiny fraction?

Sure, but what is with this fixation of having to have seen the empirical evidence myself? What's wrong with say census reports that I only read about indirectly?

No, I don't think that as a general rule

Then why on Earth would you suggest that we have no empirical evidence for trivial stuff like largest animals? Or population by country? Or weather? Or historical events as recent as world war 2?

On the other hand peer-reviewed papers do often contain errors, unreproducible results, misleading rhetoric or sometimes even outright fraud. So there are some people I know whose testimony I would consider more reliable than a randomly-selected published paper.

I found that very odd and surprising. If someone says one thing but a randomly-selected published paper says otherwise, that's a strike against the reliability of that person.

Given the fact that you accept testimonial evidence for 90+% of the things you know and believe, surely you can see how it is special pleading to dismiss testimonial evidence out of hand in some particular instances like this?

How is it special pleading when those "testimony" in question is backed with empirical evidence?

The availability of some empirical evidence - and there is some empirical evidence in the case of some UFO sightings at least - doesn't make something automatically certain or even necessarily all that believable, I'm sure you'll agree.

It is automatically more believable then the same claim without some empirical evidence.

Evidence is simply the body of available facts and information against which we compare hypotheses' plausibility, and in most cases this single bit of evidence or that single bit of evidence will not make or break a theory.

Which is why it is important for evidence to be empirical.

So the empirical evidence regarding UFOs is extremely weak. The testimonial evidence is quite weak too. But such testimonies are evidence: The large number of such reports make the alien visitation hypothesis considerably more plausible than if those reports did not exist at all. Don't they?

No? There could be double, triple the account of report and still it wouldn't be any more plausible. I'd sooner believe there is some government mind alteration experiments going on than aliens. What is going on here?

In fact by far the biggest problem with alien visitation (and especially alleged abductions) is simply that it doesn't mesh with our expectations; it simply doesn't make sense that an interstellar species would be so interested in secrecy and probing our posteriors. We think that if there were aliens visiting Earth, we'd hear more about it.

Granted, or as I would put it, absence of evidence is evidence of absence because evidence is expected.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this: Do you really apply the special pleading of denying testimonial evidence in specific cases like this, despite accepting it for the overwhelming majority of other things you know?

I don't think I am guilty of special pleading at all.

Or on reflection would be more partial towards my opinion that while the evidence is weak - too weak, in light of what we'd expect if alien visitation were true - the existence of those numerous testimonies does increase the plausibility of the visitation hypothesis compared with their absence?

No, not until they have empirical evidence to back it up. Pardon the pun, I found what you are saying here alien.