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?

[Furrowed Brow]

Two cases:

1) A man is found dead; two of Chesterton's 'peasants' testify to have seen the murder and both identify him in a line-up. Is this 'hearsay'? Evidence?

2) Two years later, a corpse is buried in a modern tomb; later it is found empty, and soon after those same two peasants claim to have had an encounter with the deceased involving all the senses, visual, auditory, and tactile. Is this 'hearsay'? Evidence?

Is the testimony stronger in the first case?

The first case is not evidence of guilt until it is assessed whether the two witnesses could have been witnesses, and could not have been the killers, and have no other motive to mislead or frailty that has lead to an error. As witness statements are notoriously unreliable some work is needed here. But given all these kinds of doubts can be reasonably satisfied then the first testimony is stronger than the second, for the reason ghost stories belong to a long list of urban myths about which it is kind of weirdly fun to tell and mislead others. As presumably there is no chance of other evidence like DNA, hair samples, footprints, etcetera in the second example, then on the basis that people who tell stories that on principle cannot be verified are more likely to have made a mistake or lying this too favours the first case.

[Divine Insight]

As a kid I used to tag along with my grandfather in his truck delivering petrol to remote communities in the Australian outback; I'd be surprised if half the folk living there had even heard of stuff like valence shell electron theory.

People who aren't even aware of scientific knowledge would be irrelevant. Where did I ever say that every person on earth has to know about scientific knowledge? What I'm talking about is that who do know about it cannot reject it as merely the opinions of scientist because they can see the technological results right in front of them.

People who don't have that experience, are irrelevant. They don't even know about science at all. So there's no point in even discussing what they might believe.

Your notion that this scientific knowledge should be viewed as some kind of dogma, something which every person on earth should consider unquestionable truth, is both utterly absurd in itself and utterly unscientific.

And again. Totally the opposite of what I have suggested. Science is not dogma. Science is a report of the actual workings of our real world. And that report is proven by how the real world actually works. And technologies are the ultimate proof that the scientific explanations are indeed correct and true.

Therefore to appeal to ignorant people in the Australian Outback who never heard of science as a claim that science is a dogma is utterly absurd.

The fact that some people are ignorant doesn't make science a dogma. In fact, if those people from the Australian Outback have the equivalent brain capacity for reasoning as everyone else, then either they, or their children should be able to become educated about the sciences to the point where even they can understand why it's not just a testimonial dogma.

Teach them about science and SHOW them the technologies that work and they'll have no choice but acknowledge that the sciences are indeed true and correct.

Ignorant people do not make science a dogma. So pointing to ignorant people who don't know anything does nothing to argue that science is nothing more than an opinionated a dogma.

[Mithrae]

"Every individual on earth"? I'm not entirely sure why, but you are displaying a profound misunderstanding and fundamental disrespect towards scientific knowledge. Or maybe you just don't understand much about how some people on this planet live. As a kid I used to tag along with my grandfather in his truck delivering petrol to remote communities in the Australian outback; I'd be surprised if half the folk living there had even heard of stuff like valence shell electron theory.

People who aren't even aware of scientific knowledge would be irrelevant. Where did I ever say that every person on earth has to know about scientific knowledge? What I'm talking about is that who do know about it cannot reject it as merely the opinions of scientist because they can see the technological results right in front of them.

You very clearly and explicitly said that... and repeated it... and emphasized it again, and still again after that!

The things you said in your post do not hold up in general.

In fact, I even made clear that they really don't even hold up for any individuals actually. If an individual thinks that their knowledge of science comes solely from testimonies they have heard they simply aren't paying attention to the real world around them.

We (meaning any humans) don't need to take anyone's testimony to know that scientific knowledge is true and correct. Therefore to make an equivalency between the credibility of what friends and family might tell us with scientific knowledge is simply wrong. This conclusion is wrong for every individual on earth. No matter who they are.

Now granted, I may not be the brilliant scientist that you've been trying to present yourself as, but when I see the words "every individual on earth" I take it to mean every individual on earth. Perhaps you think that there is a different 'scientific' meaning for the term?

Or perhaps, as I'd already guessed, you simply weren't quite aware (or didn't really consider) that the overwhelming majority of humans who have lived in the past and are alive today don't necessarily have the same advantages that you apparently enjoy.

Your blithe dismissal of this overwhelming majority of humans as "irrelevant" and "ignorant" is still a little disturbing, even allowing for your own (rather less excusable) ignorance of their existence: Being unaware of cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs does not make someone stupid or irrational, not by any stretch of the imagination. So if you hope to propose or champion a model of rational thinking, you must be able to account for individuals who don't have access to all the same information as you do.

Not that reference to folk in remote communities is really necessary to make the point - it's just a remarkable example of the kind of blinkered thinking you seem to be engaged in. But perhaps you will find this easier to understand if you keep these rural folk in mind. And I'll even try to break this down into bite-sized pieces for you:

#1 - Unless you see something for yourself you're relying on others' testimony. Aren't you?

#2 - No person, even such an amazingly brilliant scientist as you profess to be, has personally seen all information for themselves. Have they?

#3 - Every person believes and accepts as true things that they have not personally verified. Don't they?

#4 - Every person therefore accepts the testimony of other people as a valid source of information.

Please try to address these actual points, the things I have actually written. If your impressive imagination presents you with any concerns, please try to phrase them as questions about what I have said/am saying, rather than going further down the rabbit hole you have so far enjoyed

[Divine Insight]

This conclusion is wrong for every individual on earth. No matter who they are.

That's true no matter who they are. I don't care if they are ignorant, that doesn't make their conclusion correct. Ignorance doesn't make their conclusions true.

And I'll even try to break this down into bite-sized pieces for you:

#1 - Unless you see something for yourself you're relying on others' testimony. Aren't you?

Not true. Science doesn't rely on testimony. So anyone who understands how science works knows that science doesn't rely on testimony.

The argument you are making here is the apologist's fallacy. They are desperately trying to pretend that they can reduce scientific knowledge to nothing more than totally unverified personal testimony just so they can lay claim that their religious nonsense is on the same level playing field with science.

You might be able to argue this to a "pure philosopher" who has lost touch with reality. But it doesn't hold up in the real world.

#2 - No person, even such an amazingly brilliant scientist as you profess to be, has personally seen all information for themselves. Have they?

It's a religious apologetic fallacy that any one person would need to understand every single scientific discovery and principle to rationally understand that science works.

Again, your argument might work for an arm-chair philosopher who would consider such an unrealistic world as an exercise in pure philosophy. But this approach simply doesn't work in the real world.

#3 - Every person believes and accepts as true things that they have not personally verified. Don't they?

I don't know if they do or not. And besides I have personally had the experience of believing what someone told me only to discover later that they were either lying or just kidding around with me.

The fact is that a lot of things we "accept" that people claim we don't even necessarily believe. In fact, I can also point to examples where people have told me things that I didn't believe and I said to them, "I don't believe it. Show me."

While it may be true that they were able to eventually show what I didn't first believe that still doesn't mean that I should believe just anything anyone tells me.

#4 - Every person therefore accepts the testimony of other people as a valid source of information.

Now you're being absolutely ridiculous. I can point to several people that I would trust anything they say to be true because they are well known for making up fibs and extreme exaggerations.

So no I don't accept the testimony of other people as a valid source of information.

Please try to address these actual points, the things I have actually written. If your impressive imagination presents you with any concerns, please try to phrase them as questions about what I have said/am saying, rather than going further down the rabbit hole you have so far enjoyed

I fully understand the arguments you are attempting to make. I've heard similar arguments before. In fact, these types of arguments are "old hat".

No, I don't blindly believe the testimony of other people.

In fact, I can even cite a specific case as I'm quite sure many other physicists have gone through as well.

When I was first introduced to physics I learned Classical Newtonian Physics. I could see the irrefutable logic in it. And the fact that it works in every experiment I could perform, or even think up.

But then I was introduced to Einstein's Relativity. In the early going I said, "No WAY!" There's no way Relativity could be true.

Therefore I rejected the whole entire shebang of Relativity. In fact, I was going to prove that Relativity has to be false and "Save" the original Newtonian Classical physics that I had so deeply loved and appreciated.

So I didn't just accept Relativity on the grounds of pure "testimony" of physics teachers, textbooks and countless other scientists. I thought for certain that all these people had to be missing something. So I tried everything to "save" Newtonian physics and prove that Relativity cannot be true.

It was my deep desire to save Newtonian Physics that eventually brought me to the only rational possible conclusion. Einstein was indeed a genius and Relativity is true.

So I didn't just accept anyone's word for it. I even questioned that ALL scientists might have been missing something. But in hindsight I can see the utter stupidity in that. The number of famous scientists who would need to be complete idiots is beyond anything even remotely realistic.

However, far more to the point, it's actually possible to UNDERSTAND Relativity and once I understood it all I could keep saying to myself was, "How could you have been such an idiot to not realize that it had to be true right off the bat".

In hindsight things always look simple.

So no, I don't just believe things because people say they are true.

In fact, if I did that I would still be a believing Christian.

Think about it.

I was always told that Christianity was true by my parents, my pastor, the people at my church, even many members of our extended family. It wasn't until I looked into the matter for myself that I discovered that it can't possibly be true.

In short, in this life you NEVER need to depend on the testimony of others as long as you are willing to look into the matter for yourself.

You might find the WORK others have done to be very useful. But that shouldn't stop you from looking into matters for yourself.

[marco]

" 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. "

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

Chesterton wrote an amusing poem about a donkey which concluded:

"Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet. "

The stanza is sentimental nonsense, of course, but it seems to make a huge point. So too with Chesterton's comparison of idiot sceptics and wise believers. The assumptions and circularity of argument he happily assigns to the sceptic belong to him, a fortiori.

But he was a nice guy. I like the metre and rhyme in his poem Lepanto - which doesn't mean I have to accept his theology.

There may be some idiot sceptics but I think regarding them all as such is a Chestertonian piece of humorous hyperbole.

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 35 by marco]

There may be some idiot sceptics...

When the "promoters of the paranormal" start to complain about the skeptics, it seems to me that they're starting to get desperate realizing that their arguments are weak and unconvincing. Argument weak--Pound pulpit! They start demanding evidence from the skeptics either being too ignorant of the fact that they have the burden of proof rather than the skeptic or deliberately trying to shift the burden of proof to the skeptic.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 35 by marco]

There may be some idiot sceptics...

When the "promoters of the paranormal" start to complain about the skeptics, it seems to me that they're starting to get desperate realizing that their arguments are weak and unconvincing. Argument weak--Pound pulpit! They start demanding evidence from the skeptics either being too ignorant of the fact that they have the burden of proof rather than the skeptic or deliberately trying to shift the burden of proof to the skeptic.

Truly. And this thread uses G.K. Chesterton as an "authority" to support the idea that believers in a natural world are nothing more than dogmatic skeptics who depend upon opinionated testimony and unproven ancient fables just like religious people do.

That's is so absolutely false, and the proof is in the scientists who made the greatest discoveries.

Who were the following men believing the testimony of?

Gregor Mendel
Charles Darwin
Isaac Newton
Albert Einstein

The list of scientists who made breakthrough discoveries is, of course, far larger than this, but this list is sufficient to make the point.

All of the men mentioned above made their discoveries from observing the natural world and simply thinking about it in a rational manner. So if they are believing the "testimony" of anyone, they are believing the testimony of Mother Nature.

And they even only believe Her when she provides conclusive measurable evidence.

They didn't rely on any testimony of anyone. In fact, before they made their natural discoveries nobody knew what they had discovered. Or at least if someone else had already known it they missed the opportunity to be recognized for their discovery.

So the idea that humans must rely unverified human testimony is demonstrably false.

Scientist do not do that. And this is what makes science special and quite different from any religion.

Proponents of religion NEED for science to be reduced to nothing more than unverifiable testimony in order to claim that it's no more dependable than their religious dogma.

But the fact is that the proponents of religion are either not paying attention, or they are purposefully hoping to hide the fact that science has far more credibility than their ancient religious doctrines.

There's really no comparison here at all. It's futile to try to continue to support this old worn-out religious argument.

Scientific knowledge does not come from unverified human testimonies. It's simply false to suggest that it does. Yet this is what theists need to desperately believe if they are going to argue that their religions should be taken as seriously as the natural sciences.

[Mithrae]

This conclusion is wrong for every individual on earth. No matter who they are.

That's true no matter who they are. I don't care if they are ignorant, that doesn't make their conclusion correct. Ignorance doesn't make their conclusions true.

But perhaps you will find this easier to understand if you keep these rural folk in mind. And I'll even try to break this down into bite-sized pieces for you:

#1 - Unless you see something for yourself you're relying on others' testimony. Aren't you? . . . .


Please try to address these actual points, the things I have actually written.

Not true. Science doesn't rely on testimony. So anyone who understands how science works knows that science doesn't rely on testimony.

The argument you are making here is the apologist's fallacy. They are desperately trying to pretend that they can reduce scientific knowledge to nothing more than totally unverified personal testimony just so they can lay claim that their religious nonsense is on the same level playing field with science.

Oh dear. Failure from the very beginning. But not to worry, different people learn at different speeds, and I'm sure you will be able to understand this with a little time and effort

So, once again: I did not ask about the field of science. I'm asking about what an individual knows. Any individual on earth - after the last four posts, I thought that you might have been able to understand this by now - but not all individuals collectively.

For example, presumably you know that there are over 300 million people in the United States. Don't you? (Given your difficulties so far, I should probably be sure to clarify each and every point here.)

But obviously, you have not personally gone out and counted each of those 300+ million people. Have you?

So in order to know that that's how many people there are, you must believe things that you have been told by other people - government census bureaus and so on. Isn't that right?



We'd better stick with this first point for now, since you are having these difficulties. But again, please don't feel bad about struggling so much to understand

[Mithrae]

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--

No you don't Mr Chesterton. What you do is ignore the human capacity to fool themselves and at the same time refuse to look beyond testimony for actual evidence before you make your decision to accept the testimony.

...it is you rationalists who refuse actual evidence being constrained to do so by your creed.

You do not understand what counts as evidence sir.

This is a very good point - unless folk can agree on what they mean by 'evidence,' the whole discussion is rather pointless. At the start of a recent 20+ page thread I offered my own thoughts about that, and if memory serves I don't think anyone really critiqued it throughout. With a couple of clarifications added:

• Despite common usage, I think it's a little misleading to speak of evidence for something. Evidence is simply the available facts and information providing context for the evaluation of hypotheses' plausibility.
  
  If we speak of evidence for something, the only reasonable way that can be understood is that the given facts increase the probability/plausibility of a statement being true. That certainly includes common usage, but the problem is that such a conception also means that the existence of New York is evidence for the existence of Spiderman: [Among other attributes] Spiderman(A) lives in New York(B), so [the Spiderman story of] (A+B) is more probable in a world where (B) is confirmed than in one where it isn't. [A Spiderman who lives in Narnia would be even more obviously false.]
  
  Similarly, a thousand foot high shining figure appearing at Mecca and booming out that the Muslims should acknowledge Jesus as their God and saviour could be considered evidence for the Christian God; or it could [also] be considered 'evidence for' a conspiracy of billionaire Christians using advanced holographic technology and colluding with the Saudi government for unknown reasons. Relative to the absence of such a figure, the billionaire conspiracy has been made more probable by the observed facts.
  
  So the observed fact of the giant evangelist provides more context for evaluating different hypotheses, and the Christian-God hypothesis might be considered the best explanation, but I'm not sure it would be correct to say that the big display was evidence for it, per se. The conclusion is not implicit in the raw data, because we know that often such implicit assumptions are misleading.

I'd be interested in your (and others') insight on this: Should we speak of evidence 'for' something, as if the conclusion were somehow implicit in the raw data, or is it more reasonable to say that evidence is simply the available facts and information providing context for the evaluation of hypotheses' plausibility?

Or something else entirely?

[Divine Insight]

So, once again: I did not ask about the field of science. I'm asking about what an individual knows. Any individual on earth - after the last four posts, I thought that you might have been able to understand this by now - but not all individuals collectively.

For example, presumably you know that there are over 300 million people in the United States. Don't you? (Given your difficulties so far, I should probably be sure to clarify each and every point here.)

But obviously, you have not personally gone out and counted each of those 300+ million people. Have you?

So in order to know that that's how many people there are, you must believe things that you have been told by other people - government census bureaus and so on. Isn't that right?

So? That hardly equates to a personal testimony of a few individuals.

The government census is also admittedly an estimate even by the census bureaus. I accept that this is probably pretty close to the truth. Especially when I have no compelling reason to believe that it would be a purposeful scam. What would be the motivation or purpose of pretending that there are more or less people living in the USA than are actually in the USA?

Also, even though I can't go around and check to see if all the cities in the USA are real, I have been to enough cities to be confident that the ones that are being claimed to exist actually do exist. So I have no reason to doubt this information or think that it would be fraudulent. It's not self-contradictory. It's not absurd. And it's not extraordinary in any way.

In fact, for me personally it's not even important.

Edited to add: By the way, I would imagine that for large corporations that sell to large masses of people the census reports in specific locations are probably pretty important and valuable information. It's also reasonable to assume that the information is pretty dependable since large corporations most likely do depend on it being correct.

So for people who are affected by the accuracy of this data it no doubt is important that it's pretty accurate. I would imagine that this is pretty important for the auto industry, agriculture industries, etc.

Just think about how many people would need to be in cahoots for the census figures to be fraudulent.

Have you taken that into consideration?

We'd better stick with this first point for now, since you are having these difficulties. But again, please don't feel bad about struggling so much to understand

I beg your pardon? I'm not having any difficulties at all.

I'm not the one who is trying to put scientific knowledge on the same level of uncertainty as the extraordinary claims of a few individuals.

I don't see how the governmental census report is going to help you with that argument, but by all means, keep going. We can at least see how you think this could work.