Nobel Prize vs Proof that the Death Penalty MUST kill innocents

In some cases yes, in some cases no. There is a point where enough evidence has been collected that the only logically possible evidence that could occur to challenge an idea, involves practical absurdities.You people are playing too much on the tentativity of science. Indeed, you just keep repeating the same things over and over again, despite explanations of wher it comes from, how it is used, and counterexamples.Scientific methodology is used for a purpose, and investigates things which are not as clear as some cases of causation are. Especially at the gross level of human action. Both short paragraphs add up to a strawman and an argument from ignorance.You observe it in systems which have lower thresholds of information. It is like me judging that we can never have adequate justice systems by pointing out the mock courts of the spanish inquisition.That you argue we cannot improve systems because of past errors is indeed an argument against science and what went into building our nation. A court ruled on a basis of evidence that she was in fact brain damaged such that she was unlikely to recover, and that she had communicated a wish (at some place and time) not to live like that, and so ordered her killed.I am trying to figure out how you and jar do not see the complete parallel between that and a court ruling on a basis of evidence that a person did something at some place and time.Yeah I'll bet you guys don't want to discuss it. It's called a dodge.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

You did the reading? Good then what is the connection between scientific theories and every day knowledge? Do you need a scientific theory to tie your shoes, to realize that it is your wife you are looking at?Oh wait, that's right. You don't answer any question that might challenge your position such as the very direct point I made regarding the difference between PE and whether Gould wrote about PE in support of evolutionary theory.You have conflated scientific theorizing past its intended borders and what's worse adopted creationist scientific methodology as a necessity to conflate metaphysical logical possibility to viable plausible theory.But I guess you know that since you read everything.In any case, yes you can still use induction. The rules are tighter and they can be matched in the real world for many things, objects of scientific discovery are usually not one of them. No really they are one liners. When I give you concrete examples to address, and you ignore them, then rethrow your original statement at me, they are nothing at all. Its called ad nauseum. It is a logical fallacy (look it up). It neither makes your case, and in general usually points to a failure (and even a self acknowledged failure) in your argument.The fact that you refuse to answer simple and direct questions which are on topic, to throw glib choose this or this statements at me, is not really impressive. You cannot tell if Dahmer killed anyone? You cannot tell if Gould published papers on PE in support of ToE? You cannot theorize a hypothetical situation where you actually have knowledge of a murder?We can tell the difference. We have been able to tell the difference. Metaphysical tentativity is a possibility, but is useless in practice. That's what scientists discovered years and years ago. But I guess we can all close our eyes now and go to sleep.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

If you ever wondered why fundies would come on and slap each other on the back over the most absurd statements regarding the nature of science and scientific theories, you now have special insight.As for me, I still can't figure it out. What does it take to actively not answer a straightforward question, and simply repeat one's first position like a mantra?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Well we already have the start of one system. Jar finally admitted that some realities which have actually happened might allow him to execute a person.For him it was that on top of all the evidence the "suspect" not only readily confesses, but actively wishes to have the death sentence imposed.Is that a level of evidence you are willing to accept?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

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For him it was that on top of all the evidence the "suspect" not only readily confesses, but actively wishes to have the death sentence imposed.

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Is that a level of evidence you are willing to accept?

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No.If we later find out all of that evidence was wrong, we can't take back the death penalty.Nothing is 100% proven, holmes, not even in science, and that is the sticking point we seem to have in this converstaion. As Gould says, even what we consider "facts" in science are accepted only provisionally, and I agree with that definition, while you, apparently, do not.When someone's life is on the line, I don't think we should have mere "provisional acceptance". I believe we need much more, which I don't think is possible, since humans are not omnicient.Show me how we can move beyond "provisional acceptance" of something as basic as a fact, as you seem to think that we can.Now, you may be comfortable with this level of uncertainty. I am not.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 04-14-2005 08:40 AM

HolmesSeveral times in this thread you've used the phrase "practical certainty".What exactly is "practical certainty"? Is there a precise pre-existing definition, or is this your term...and if it's your term, what do you mean by it?

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Well we already have the start of one system. Jar finally admitted that some realities which have actually happened might allow him to execute a person.

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For him it was that on top of all the evidence the "suspect" not only readily confesses, but actively wishes to have the death sentence imposed.

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Is that a level of evidence you are willing to accept?

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If I understand Jar correctly, it isn't that he considers it an acceptable "level of evidence", it's that it's a high level of evidence PLUS the execution does not go against the person's wishes.Me, I think it's a terrible idea to allow a person's wish to be executed to be a contributing factor...too much risk of a mentally ill person caught up in a big mess wanting to commit suicide.

You have misunderstood what that specific comment was related to. Not just one person has raised the point of intentional abuse of a system. There is certainly the ability of a vast conspiracy to abuse ANY system.If the problem is the possibility of someone getting killed because of extreme abuse of a system, then one begins to pull apart all human endeavour.Some of the most graphic examples (and they are much more numerous than frame-ups leading to death sentences) are police killing wholly innocent people. They actually do have the ability (the right) to kill people without every going through court. If the problem with the death penalty is even if we tighten it so no mistakes go through, intentional misconduct can, then what of the other instruments of state that share this power? There is a limit to the nature of unforseen evidence that can be granted as realistic, or practically possible. This is why I was trying to start with hypotheticals for which there would be no question that more info could surface, or alternatively real life examples where it is clear there could not be more info that could possibly be generated that would bear on the case.I am not the one refusing to even discuss a hypothetical and a real life case.I do not understand why that is being done by people who routinely skewer creos for that exact same behavior. It is obvious when creos do it. And it is obvious to me when anyone else does it, even if they are liberals clammering for a popular liberal cause.What's funny is I'd even be willing to accept living in a nation where everyone denounced the death penalty as undesirable (indeed I currently do). I am not lusting for blood and think society will collapse without it. My problem is the lies that antiDP people are surrounding themselves with to demonize anyone who supports it, as well as to prop up some figment of "scientific rationality" to their quite obviously subjective moral and political position. Not everything is science, and science is not meant to apply to everything. Indeed some rules of knowledge are necessarily tighter than modern science uses.Can you tell the difference between your knowledge of whether Gould's PE theory applies to real life, and whether Gould published papers on PE theory?So far I can't get a straight answer from crash. This is of course part of the line of reasoning underlying all of my opponent's positions on this issue.What this says is that rules of knowledge must scale according desirability of moral outcome. Think about that. That is exactly what it says.But the problem is this, it shows exactly where you have adopted the creo stance regarding knowledge.Okay so the one thing YOU would never be willing to wager is a person's life, and so if it is in the balance we throw out not just modern scientific methodology, but embrace a metaphysical view of knowledge much more open than that of creos. Where this happens is in courts and so we cannot have that in court... except of course when the life being wagered is someone fundies want kept alive.Well the one thing fundies are not willing to wager is the TRUTH, and more importantly the life of GOD (or their own souls). Thus if it is in the balance they expect us to throw out modern scientific methodology for older scientific methods which will grant their theories the same status as modern scientific theories.The fact is. just like people's lives, the TRUTH, can be sacrificed by embracing modern scientific methodology. They are absolutely 100% correct. That is something scientists accepted long ago, just like when they threw out the absolute incredulity of metaphysical tentativity (we can know nothing).Although you may feel superior to the fundies for thinking they can actually save souls, as if they are more important than lives, that is a subjective moral position, with the exact same epistemological nihilism we have been discussing in other threads.Think about it.Am I willing to risk one person's life on a tentative theory? No. It is only a stock dilemma that I'd have to. Not all knowledge is as tentative as a scientific theory.When it reaches the point that the only logically possible sources of future evidence which can refute my current model, involve Godlike beings, or ultra conspiracies (which in the end if that comes out then we do have someone to blame), then I feel pretty safe in saying, yeah I know it.We already have the makings of one system. Keeping the same general framework of courts that we have now, what if we required the suspect caught in the act, with several unrelated witnesses, and positive physical evidence, plus the person confesses to the crime and actively seeks the death penalty. In that case could you feel like you know?As for me... Dahmer did it, Gould published papers on PE, yet whether OJ is guilty or PE is correct is tentative. I believe the latter are true with all my heart and mind, but there are possible avenues for future contradictory evidence. What possible evidence could have come forward to refute his guilt, especially as he ended up admitting to his guilt?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

You have conflated science well past its boundaries, and indeed are refuting the basic process of building scientific methodology. Answer the question. Can you tell the difference between whether PE is how nature works, and whether Gould wrote papers on PE?Do you have a husband or boyfriend? Please explain to me how all the evidence could possibly be wrong within this hypothetical case.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

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What does it take to actively not answer a straightforward question, and simply repeat one's first position like a mantra?

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Alternatively, Crash's "mantra" includes straightforward questions that you are actively not answering, and I haven't seen your position evolve since page 1 of this thread, either.

aristo hahaha. good job.actually that's quite my point: that people are self-righteous.
maybe you're experience was good, but the majority of people will look at the accused and see only that they are 'better'. depending of course on their own stereotypes. then their minds will start to warp the information so that they see what they want.This message has been edited by brennakimi, 04-14-2005 09:18 AM

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You cannot tell if Dahmer killed anyone? You cannot tell if Gould published papers on PE in support of ToE? You cannot theorize a hypothetical situation where you actually have knowledge of a murder?

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Sure, we can tell.But not with enough certainty to advocate a system that we would need to apply to every situation which uses tentative, provisional acceptance of facts and evidence as a means to determine if we are going to kill people or not.You, apparently, are comfortable with that level, however small, of uncertainty.I am not.Not when someone's life is on the line.

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"Please explain to me how all the evidence could possibly be wrong within this hypothetical case"

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The principle of provisional knowledge is the admission that there may be something we haven't thought of yet, so this question is moot. It's precisely because we can't be sure we've thought of everything that one adheres to the principle of provisional knowledge.It does NOT lead to total inaction or total inability to do science or cross the street. It just says that even "obvious truths" have been and could once again be wrong, even if we can't currently think of how.In science, we accept "facts" to build theories, contribute to engineering, etc. But these facts, even, are "provisional".For the engineering application of making a system to decide who gets executed, however, that's not good enough.

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"Do you have a husband or boyfriend?"

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Well, she might have both, I'm not 100% sure...

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Can you tell the difference between whether PE is how nature works, and whether Gould wrote papers on PE?

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Do you have a husband or boyfriend?

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I might bet my life on having the correct answers to those questions, but I wouldn't bet anyone else's life.Especially the second one. It just might be the case that through some strange technicality, my marriage license might not be valid and I don't know it. I could live my whole life like that and not realize it, but it wouldn't make it not true.Now, if someone's life was dependent upon my knowing The True Answer to the question "Do you have a husband?", and I answered "Yes", and we found out that I wasn't really married even though I thought that I was, that person would die.I'm not willing to take that risk with another person's life.Are you?

the question is not can we tell if someone has committed a murder. the question is can we tell when someone has not, even though all the evidence is stacked against him.say a man and his wife live on a farm of sorts or in a cabin out in the woods. say the man goes on a walk one night (as he usually does) and the wife stays to finish some task (which she usually does). someone approximately the same size and strength of the husband breaks into the house wearing gloves of the same brand, miraculously from the same lot which the man owns (no fingerprints, but fibers. note. they don't find the second pair of gloves.) and wearing the same kind of boots (same print) as the husband wears all the time. say he beats said woman to death. say the couple has recently had a great deal of arguments, some culminating in heated, harsh words and maybe even throwing stuff (maybe they were trying to conceive and having trouble and this was putting a strain on their relationship). say the intruder used a blunt object he found at the cabin to beat the woman. there's no evidence of tire tracks. the intruder came through the woods from approximately the same direction as the husband's normal walks. the husband gets home and calls the authorities. they never find the intruder.who do you think would be convicted?why?now are you comfortable with the level of doubt? if a grieving husband is murdered by the state for being in the wrong place at the wrong time (with the wrong pair of gloves).This message has been edited by brennakimi, 04-14-2005 09:30 AM