|
give me, in plain English, one scientific reason that i should only believe things for which there is scientific evidence.
It's logical.
No, its an assumption.
And theres nothing particularly wrong with making that assumption as long as you're willing to admit its an assumption.
But if you can't recognize it as an assumption you fail at critical thinking.
Evidence-based reasoning is good and proper for science.
While I can't prove that to be true, I do find it useful.
Evidence-based reasoning is less useful in areas where the evidence is vague or just non-existent.
So while you feel justified in demanding evidence-based reasoning, don't feel compelled to only use a hammer just because its good at the nail thing.
|
The fact is that the scientific method is the best thing we have for discerning fact from fiction. If I'm going to be hitting nails I'd rather have a hammer than a toothbrush.
|
I don't apply the scientific method to any of my quotidian activities. I barely even use it for the school projects where it's needed o.o
|
Thank you Cloud, I have learned a new word! tbh the 3 major arguments for belief in a creator, the Cosmological, Teleological and Ontological, have been criticised so damningly, especially by Kant, that they can no longor hold much merit.
|
This thread needs more debate about different philosophies of language and their connection with the idea of truth. I can only recommend Roy Harris's "the linguistics of history" from 2004. It really is a great book.
Anyways to start the debate, a fundamental principle in the modern study of language is that words and signs have to inherent meaning, their meaning is always a product of the communicational context. This has influence on the idea of reading or determining the historical truth from written evidence.
|
If I'm going to be hitting nails I'd rather have a hammer than a toothbrush.
If your only tool is a hammer every problem looks like a nail
..and you have horrible teeth... 
|
On May 04 2010 20:18 gyth wrote:
No, its an assumption.
And theres nothing particularly wrong with making that assumption as long as you're willing to admit its an assumption.
But if you can't recognize it as an assumption you fail at critical thinking.
It really isn't an assumption.
How about this: each of us bets our lives on something being true. I'll bet my life on something for which there is a lot of evidence, you bet yours on something for which there is none. The number of people who get on (and more importantly off) planes every day, versus the number of hopefuls willing to faceplant off a high building really speaks volumes 
Evidence-based reasoning is less useful in areas where the evidence is vague or just non-existent.
What makes you think such 'areas' are in any sense real or worth worrying about? There is evidence for all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff in this universe; isn't that enough to be getting on with?
|
Is murder wrong?
What is the evidence?
|
On May 04 2010 23:24 gyth wrote:
Is murder wrong?
What is the evidence?
what an incredibly vague question
|
On May 04 2010 19:09 Peeling wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2010 03:59 tinman wrote:
did you guys know that there is an individual in this very thread who credits our ability to walk to critical thinking? i am not making this shit up. Ah, someone did read my post; good. Hello  If you go back and take a second look, however, you'll find I don't credit our ability to walk to critical thinking. If I gave that impression, it was not intentional and I apologise. Learning to walk - to coordinate our muscles and nerves and all the rest of it - is a process of trial and error: trying things and distinguishing what works (what produces the expected/desired result) from what doesn't. If our minds didn't make that distinction, if they didn't allow evidence to shape their model of reality, we could not learn. You've asked why we should confine ourselves to evidence-based beliefs: perhaps you should think about how well you would be able to walk right now if your subconscious had just picked a random set of muscle movements and refused to refine them in the light of feedback from reality Trial and error is not critical thinking, though. Critical thinking is taking a step back to assess or quantify how well you know an existing or proposed mental model conforms with reality. Say someone takes a homeopathic remedy and a few days later they feel better. Instinctive trial and error reasoning tells them the remedy worked: do the same thing again next time. Critical thinking exposes the inadequacy of that single data point. More generally it highlights unsupported beliefs so they can be properly tested.
peeling i get the impression that you are a moron. now let me tell you why i get this impression.
obviously i was talking to severedevil and not to you. i say obviously because severedevil and i had our little lovers quarrel already AND because i my reply to his post comes before you ever entered the thread.
the fact that you take my post as EVIDENCE that i was talking to you makes me SKEPTICAL of your THINKING abilities critical or otherwise.
|
On May 04 2010 23:24 gyth wrote:
Is murder wrong?
What is the evidence?
Asking such an unspecified question does not prove anything (or at most that you don't have a clear concept of evidence). I could also ask "Is bread interesting?" or "Is bread wrong?" for that matter. You would need to specify what you mean by "wrong". If you mean "morally wrong" you would just need to look at the various value systems and morals humanity has come up with and then "yes" according to most documented moral systems, murder is considered wrong under most circumstances. Evidence can be readily provided.
If you are even more specific and swap "morally wrong" with "detrimental for a society" then you can even have a more interesting albeit more complex investigation. The answer is again "yes" and plenty of evidence can be provided for that, which is actually the reason why basically all civilizations had figured this out independently already thousands of years ago.
I am really curious to know, why you would think such a question could not be answered by evaluating observable evidence or which alternative technique you would consider to find out the truth. Prayer?
|
On May 04 2010 23:24 gyth wrote:
Is murder wrong?
What is the evidence?
Could you maybe narrow that down for me a bit? I'm not sure what you personally would include under the umbrella term 'murder'.
|
On May 04 2010 19:33 MiraMax wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2010 08:55 Gnosis wrote:On May 04 2010 08:49 sob3k wrote:On May 04 2010 06:36 MiraMax wrote:On May 04 2010 03:34 Gnosis wrote:On May 04 2010 03:10 MiraMax wrote:On May 04 2010 02:56 Gnosis wrote:On May 04 2010 02:33 daz wrote:On May 04 2010 02:05 Gnosis wrote:On May 04 2010 01:21 Severedevil wrote:
[quote]
Walking is learned by observation, and by trial and error. We do not 'evolve' the ability to walk if we lie in a crib with our eyes closed.
[quote]
I briefly looked up the Kalam, not sure how it's relevant, but wiki said it contained as one of its principles "God is an absolute unity, and no attribute can be ascribed to Him" which is self-contradictory, as 'absolute unity' and 'inability to ascribe attributes to Him" are attributes that it ascribed to him.
It's popular for religion to contradict itself and then pretend those contradictions are somehow 'deep' - can all-powerful God make a rock he can't move? Yes, and he can then move it herp derp - but a self-contradicting philosophy is false.
If the Kalam you refer to doesn't take such a principle, please share. I'm referring to the Kalam cosmological argument (which is by itself argued by WLC). It would not include the above. That is a problem you would need to take up with Islamic theologians, philosophers, apologetics, etc.
You're conflating the idea of a public contest of rhetoric with legitimate discourse.
An honest thinker does not offer trivially flawed arguments. I do not need to sift through all the intellectual dishonesty Craig spews in attempt to find a gem of coherency hiding within, any more than I need to search through a steaming pile of shit on the off-chance there's a delicious sandwich hidden inside.You imply there's a sandwich. Then fish it out, please. I'd like to see.
But don't act surprised when Craig's debate opponents are left speechless by a wagon full of shit.
[Note that I have employed rhetoric for emphasis. Stripping that rhetoric... I checked that Craig is intellectually dishonest (repeatedly in his recorded debates), and conclude that an intellectually honest scholar is more likely to offer truth and therefore more worth my time to investigate.]
Then like Socrates to the Sophists I ask you, answer the question? If you don't want to, I'm not going to push the point, I'm not really in the mood for debating. However if you are going to say something, and I ask you what you see wrong, then I would expect a little more than "you look for it".
The best way to predict and understand human behavior is to study the behavior of a variety of humans and look for patterns. That's science - if you disagree, what method do you think is more effective? And how do you show that method is more effective except by comparing its predictions against reality, i.e. the scientific method?
I could likewise claim that science is very bad at explaining how sheep entrails predict our lives, and that soothsaying is a better tool...
I'm not referring to human behavior, but to intention. Science might conclude, for instance, that dear mum has baked me a cake because it's my birthday, but is this necessarily the case? No. We're still stuck examining behaviors as distinct from intentions. On May 04 2010 01:53 daz wrote:
[quote]
I found this on wiki so my apologies if it's not the same arguement you were referring to:
William Lane Craig has formulated the argument as follows:[2]
1.Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2.The universe began to exist.
3.Therefore, the universe has a cause.
Ok so starting off the first point is an assumption that has not been proven, but since that would be too easy we'll just ignore it and move on. So, the universe began to exist, therefore it had a cause. Well at some point that cause began to exist, so it must also have had a cause. Or maybe that cause existed forever? But if we're acknowleding that its possible for something to have always existed and not had a beginnng, why do we assume that the universe began at some point and didn't always exist forever? And even if we ignore that, and say that there was some original cause, who is to say that original cause is some kind of god? Why not the Big Bang? Why not the flying spaghetti monster, or little green men, or any one of an infinite number of possibilities? Couldn't that have been the cause for the universe? Yes, that is the argument The only alternative I can see to premise (1) is that something began to exist which didn't have a cause, but how does something begin to exist without a case? Did it pop out of nothing? Is it possible you've confused this with the statement, "whatever exists has a cause"? Big Bang cosmology is the reason we're "assuming" that the universe had a beginning. I don't know how something can begin to exist without having a cause, I don't need to know an alternative in order to state that the first premise is an assumption. Either way its a safe assumption based on our grasp of reality so I have no problem making it, I just wanted to point out that maybe when you're trying to prove something, its hard to do so convincingly when you start off with an assumption. But anyway, moving on to Big Bang cosmology, basically it states that there was a singularity, and that singularity expanded into the universe. So we could just end the whole arguement there and say that was the cause for the universe. But I'm guessing you would then say that you're referring to the cause of that singularity, in which case I have to point out that the Big Bang theory does not say that the singularity began to exist at any point, and some views actually state the opposite. It's a fairly strong assumption, then, unless you have an example of something that began to exist, and didn't have a cause. Otherwise yes, it's a safe assumption (much like the "assumption" that all men die). The question of the origin of the big bang is quite an interesting one Sorry, to interfere in your discussion, but the Kalam cosmological argument has been debunked, so many times, it's not even funny. And if WLC would be honest, he would just admit it and move on. It basically contains fallacies in every single premise (and not only the most obvious ill "leap" towards a god or personal agent as WLC calls it). Fact is, we hardly have evidence that ANYTHING ever came into existence, at least in the sense Kalam implies (except for some weird quantum effects). What we mean with "coming into existence" in everyday talk is that mattter or energy changes form or configuration and becomes another macro entity. The "stuff" everything is made of was already there since the Big Bang. Therefore, there is simply is no grounds to say that "everything that begins to exist has a cause", since as far as we are concerned we never actually witnessed something beginning to exist in this sense (and if it happens at the quantum level we could not observe any cause). The way WLC treats infinities just demonstrates a very limited understanding of math and it frustrates me that he apparently never takes up a book to read up on that, in spite of it being pointed out to him wherever he goes ... Kalam really holds no water... You seem to know your stuff, maybe you could help me out. In so far as I understand Craig, the gist of his argument is that according to contemporary cosmology, the universe had a beginning in the big bang (when time can into being, etc.). Craig doesn't address the singularity, just the event in which our universe began to exist. The singularity itself, as I understand it, is where all known laws of nature break down, and thus cannot be studied by science since it is supranatural. As I also understand it, this "big bang" was also the cause of time, matter, space, etc. So it can be reasonable deduced that these things "began to exist" concurrently with the big bang, even if we haven't seen such a thing. This is a different thing that saying that the material universe we experience now was once everything that comprised the singularity (wouldn't a singularity envelope our universe?). Maybe you could shed some light on that for me, and also explain how we can criticize the Kalam while maintaining scientific evidence to the contrary, when it seems to me as if we wouldn't have such evidence available to us. I am a mathematician, not a phycisist, but I will try my best. The Big Bang is the logical consequence of the theory of an expanding universe. Since it is a fact that the universe is ever expanding, we deduce that there was a common starting point of space itself (the singularity). The problem for physics is, that close to this singularity the effects of quantum mechanics (the laws of the micro world) interact with the general theory of relativity (the laws of the macro world) to such an extent, that the mathematical results are not interpretable anymore (the laws collapse if you will). The Big Bang theory does not make a definite statement on the state of the universe before time zero however (nor even at time zero), so what physicists mean with "the universe began to exist" is "the universe - as we know it- began to exist". It does not shed any light on the question of where the energy/matter actually came from or by what it could have been caused. Since we now know that space and time is inevetibly tied together (unlike Newtonian Physics promoted), the Big Bang can be seen as the starting point of time as we perceive it. But the question of what came before it is not settled at all and we don't even know whether this would be an intelligent question to ask. There are certainly cyclic models which promote and infinite series of Big Bang events. A singularity is also not impossible to study in principle (as far as we know), but we are currently lacking a unified theory that combines quantum mechanics and relativtiy to provide the most basic tools for such a study. The Kalam Cosmological argument (in it's syllogistic version) can be criticised, since it makes (seemingly innocent) claims about the real world. But at it's heart it's a semantic scam, which uses everyday language and layman's experience to construct a "proof" for the existence of a god. That's also why I can tear it to pieces without even leaving my chair. First premise: Whatever begins to exist has a cause However intuitive it may sound, we don't have any empirical basis to verify that. We never witnessed anything coming to existence from "nothingness" (some quantum effects aside, which seem to be "uncaused"). We cannot even logically process any cause on "nothing" to create something (if nothing was caused, there was no cause). What we see in the real world is something (that exists) causes something else (that exists) to change form to something different. The premise is without foundation and just based on a misuse of the concept "begins to exist". Second premise: The universe began to exist. We don't know whether this is true or what "began" even means if time really did not exist beforehand (see above). The argument about "actual infinities" which WLC used in the past (don't know whether he gave up on that) is so old that even ancient greek philosophers were able to come up with answers and has been conclusively solved mathematically 200 years ago. We simply don't know whether the universe began to exist, so the premise is questionable at best. It follows that the first conclusion that "The universe has a cause" is unfounded. We simply don't have any empirical basis to assert whether either of the two premises is actually sound. The biggest mistakes are certainly made in WLC next steps where he deduces that "God did it", but as I tried to show it's not even necessary to go that far to show that the argument is not sound in the sense that we cannot say whether it reflects reality. It therefore fails imo. TLDR VERSION (from reading and my own investigation) 1. The Big Bang is not neccesarily "The beginning of everything", it is merely as far back in time as scientists have been able to investigate. 2. If you ask science, "How can the Big Bang be the beginning, where did it come from/what caused it?", the correct scientific response will be: "We don't know, we are still working on that, the Big Bang is as far back as we have figured out so far." 3. The question of "what caused the universe?" is not supported by observation. Nothing in the known universe has been observed to "begin", or "spring from nothing", it merely changes from a previous state. If we are to apply this observation, the logical conclusion would be that there is no reason for the universe to have acted any differently. As I was going to say in my other response, but didn't... I guess that's the reason we're working within a philosophical framework Sob3k summed it up perfectly imo. My main gripe with Kalam and WLC is that he presents it as a "proof" using somewhat intuitive concepts for more than a decade now and quotes "science" whenever he sees fit to further his point. Instead it would be just a matter of intellectual honesty to say that pretty much nothing we can observe in the real world can be applied to the special circumstances of a "beginning of everything", so while we might speculate, we are in no position to prove anything by now and we simply don't know (yet). What seems probable though, is that linear concepts which require time and space to exist in the first place, like cause and effect, will not be helpful or at the very least lose their meaning.
I understand what you're saying I think I understand WLC differently than you do. You seem to be taking this "proof" (of the Kalam) as something absolute, or definitive. I take it only as what he believes to be the best explanation for the "evidence" that he's dealing with. That's how I view the difference between mathematics, and philosophy (or science, and philosophy). One has you restricted to "cold" facts, the other lets you take things a step further (which philosophy has always done). Now, Craig may be completely wrong and unjustified in all his views, but if I had to make the judgment personally, I would have to agree with his philosophical speculation (in as far as I understand entropy, beginnings, infinities, etc.) Otherwise, even for science I see a point where it ceases to follow the "scientific method" and becomes suspiciously similar to metaphysics.
On May 04 2010 23:47 daz wrote:what an incredibly vague question
And a moral one, at that. Only to show that science isn't equipped to answer moral questions? You guys are missing the point, if your gripe is that the question is vague. And he's right to ask the question from a moral view point. I suspect this is a question of objectively wrong, rather than subjectively wrong. Even if we arrive at a conclusion because 'X' societies view it as wrong, we would still ask, is it really wrong, independent of our opinion? "Murder is generally bad for the development of civilization" is not the same as saying "murder is wrong".
|
On May 04 2010 23:59 tinman wrote:
peeling i get the impression that you are a moron. now let me tell you why i get this impression.
obviously i was talking to severedevil and not to you. i say obviously because severedevil and i had our little lovers quarrel already AND because i my reply to his post comes before you ever entered the thread.
the fact that you take my post as EVIDENCE that i was talking to you makes me SKEPTICAL of your THINKING abilities critical or otherwise.
Hmm. Well, in post #138 I mentioned learning to move limbs etc. Then in post #201 Severedevil makes a similar point. I confess I missed that post - sorry. Then in post #244 - your first post since Severedevil's, you make this comment:
did you guys know that there is an individual in this very thread who credits our ability to walk to critical thinking? i am not making this shit up.
I thought this was in reference to me, because I wrongly thought I was the only person to mention the subject. If missing post #201 makes me a moron, then guilty as charged. But since you clearly also missed a post of mine (#138), I suppose I'm in good company
|
Oooooooh... i get it now.
i assumed i was talking to someone who had read the TEAMLIQUID COMMANDMENTS and who did not post in TWO DIFFERENT USERNAMES that he had made LESS THAN THREE WEEKS APART.
oh boy i sure have egg on my face.
go read the commandments, kid.
|
but no i did not read 138. to the best of my knowledge no one did. i just tried to read it since you linked to it and only narrowly avoided being bored to death.
|
On May 05 2010 00:04 Gnosis wrote:
And a moral one, at that. Only to show that science isn't equipped to answer moral questions? You guys are missing the point, if your gripe is that the question is vague. And he's right to ask the question from a moral view point. I suspect this is a question of objectively wrong, rather than subjectively wrong. Even if we arrive at a conclusion because 'X' societies view it as wrong, we would still ask, is it really wrong, independent of our opinion? "Murder is generally bad for the development of civilization" is not the same as saying "murder is wrong".
No, it's certainly not the same. But you are missing the point imo. Because one of the two can actually be answered and the other one is a semantic dodge which doesn't lead anywhere.
You: "Is the sky blue?"
Me: "Yes it is!"
You: "Give me evidence!"
Me: "Just look at it. It emits light waves in the blue spectrum. At least in this moment"
You: "Yeah, but does it mean it is really blue. I mean, we only see it's reflection. Is it really blue in nature? Seeming blue and really being blue is not the same thing!"
Me: "sigh..."
I know you will find the analogy misleading, but is that really so? Maybe "being wrong" is not and cannot be any operable category and is essentially meaningless. Just like being really blue is meaningless. "Blue" is a label we put on stuff we perceive as blue, just like "wrong" is a label we put on stuff we perceive as being "wrong". Don't let yourself be fooled by the fact that moral questions/dilemmas don't have simple answers or even "optimal solutions". They can nonetheless be tackled by rationalism and imo it's the best way to tackle them. In any case trying to find answers that are founded on observable evidence allows us to really explain why we have moral labels, not just take them as divine commands.
|
On May 05 2010 00:27 MiraMax wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2010 00:04 Gnosis wrote:
And a moral one, at that. Only to show that science isn't equipped to answer moral questions? You guys are missing the point, if your gripe is that the question is vague. And he's right to ask the question from a moral view point. I suspect this is a question of objectively wrong, rather than subjectively wrong. Even if we arrive at a conclusion because 'X' societies view it as wrong, we would still ask, is it really wrong, independent of our opinion? "Murder is generally bad for the development of civilization" is not the same as saying "murder is wrong".
No, it's certainly not the same. But you are missing the point imo. Because one of the two can actually be answered and the other one is a semantic dodge which doesn't lead anywhere. You: "Is the sky blue?" Me: "Yes it is!" You: "Give me evidence!" Me: "Just look at it. It emits light waves in the blue spectrum. At least in this moment" You: "Yeah, but does it mean it is really blue. I mean, we only see it's reflection. Is it really blue in nature? Seeming blue and really being blue is not the same thing!" Me: "sigh..." I know you will find the analogy misleading, but is that really so? Maybe "being wrong" is not and cannot be any operable category and is essentially meaningless. Just like being really blue is meaningless. "Blue" is a label we put on stuff we perceive as blue, just like "wrong" is a label we put on stuff we perceive as being "wrong". Don't let yourself be fooled by the fact that moral questions/dilemmas don't have simple answers or even "optimal solutions". They can nonetheless be tackled by rationalism and imo it's the best way to tackle them. In any case trying to find answers that are founded on observable evidence allows us to really explain why we have moral labels, not just take them as divine commands.
I'm having a hard time finding where I mentioned divine command theory (mind you, I do believe that an objective moral set exists), but anyway. I think we agree, you and I. We can take a specific act, examine it, compare and contrast throughout different societies, cultures, etc. and come to a general understanding of the best way to act either personally or corporately (if you wanted to reduce suffering, but maximize happiness, for instance). Calling these moral actions, or "wrong" or "bad" or "right" is ultimately, however, delusional. What we have is simply a set of actions which have shown themselves to be most conducive to the advancement of civilization (and we can arrive at this set of actions through any number of moral theories: deontological, categorical imperatives, virtue theory, utilitarianism, moral objectivism, etc.). On this level being Mother Teresa and being Adolf Hitler are moral equivalents. Helping grandma across the street and raping babies are moral equivalents (which is not the same as equivalent actions. Simply that there is no moral consideration, or weight, to the actions at all). The feelings of disgust, hatred, etc. towards some of these people (i.e. people who rape babies) is entirely unfounded, at least in so far as we call the action "wrong" rather than "not conducive to society". Society 50 years ago perceived homosexuality as a crime, now it's a crime to speak out against homosexuality. "Right" and "wrong" have swapped places, because there really was no "right" and "wrong" (even though we phrase this change as it was "wrong" to treat homosexuals that way). Moral talk is exactly that, double speak, unless there is some foundation to it other than our thoughts on the subject.
Ultimately I think the question boils down to this: is there an objective morality? If there is, then how can we know it. If not, then we have a lot of thinking, and reflection to do. We have to utilize any and all of the ethical theories that we've developed, and move from there (and perhaps we will develop better ethical theories). But again on this view, there is no right and wrong, just what we make of it. And to be clear, we can still act in a "moral" way, and we can still be "good" people.
|
On May 05 2010 00:25 tinman wrote:
i assumed i was talking to someone who had read the TEAMLIQUID COMMANDMENTS and who did not post in TWO DIFFERENT USERNAMES that he had made LESS THAN THREE WEEKS APART.
You are absolutely right - I am very sorry. I created this first account using a work e-mail address and found myself unable to log in from home while on holiday (I couldn't access the password from my home PC). I made a second account to which I would have password/admin access from anywhere, completely forgetting this computer would log me back on as Peeling when I returned to work.
It turns out I'm occupying moronsville alone after all. So it goes.
I'll ditch this account right away. Thanks.
|
dude you shouldn't be so apologetic to someone who's being a complete dick to you.
fuck tinman. he's a douche.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
