Scientific Knowledge

...dang...I guess I've had enough.....Straggler, replying to CS, posits: {dons on the role of a fearsome highway robber in the deep south USA on a dark dirt road leaping out from the bushes in front of Straggler...holds an unknown homemade zipgun weapon menacingly in Straggler's face in one hand and a large ceramic jug in the other...}CITE!! Post direct links to posts written by these "some people". Who are they? Do NOT paraphrase in your in your own words. Do NOT draw conclusions in your own words. CITE in linked quote boxes.You have been having a bad habit of not doing this, instead you have been substituting your own rewritten words. Get over it. You need to CITE these posted phenomena in a manner that we can check and assure ourselves that you are not misquoting, misinterpreting, and even LYING. We need to be able to repeat the experiment and confirm. Your credibility on this issue has been destroyed. You need to start over.(Oh, and by the way, what is your definition of "woo woo". - no, nevermind that...)What is your EVIDENCE?Don't give me your massaged data - give me the raw data.So I ask you now to CITE. I ask you 1st. Then you can ask me (although RAZD Zen Deist has been citing many of your transgressions all along).When you have finished drinking down this horrible deadly moonshine on this dark dirt road, then I'll give you this gun and you can make me drink! {end highway robber mode}

Straggler writes: What in the world is the difference between this Postulate and the other one, "Substantiated objective scientific evidence is telling us about reality and not LYING." Best? Most effective? "Methodological" == objectively scientific & able to be substantiated. Best & most effective == best way to explain it as we know it --> we are not being lied to. It is the same. You are agreeing with me and CS and ZD. We are on the same page.If you don't think it is a Postulate for the Scientific Method, then enlighten me - what was it derived from? But ZD has not been trying addressing science's own justifications. He has been addressing individual people's opinions of it. He doesn't care or complain with how much you agree with how strongly he supports the Scientific Method (and he supports it very strongly, if you haven't noticed) - he cares about your reasons for doing so. He wants them to be well-founded. That's what this whole enchilada about Pseudoskepicism vis'a'vis God came from. When you come up with all these fantastic untestible or fictional SBs, they miss the target - they attack the foundation of science - that methodological experience (objective substantiated evidence) is not trying to LIE. They do not address the logical formulation of each individual's support of it. They are off topic. - but nonetheless still assuming, underneath, that it's evidence is in fact NOT some kind of Last Thursdayism lying away like crazy. Look: "using reality itself as the benchmark against which our conclusions are measured" - yes, but verified against alternate explanations by using equipment that is built carefully under the assumption that all of the calibration steps & null-hypothesis testing are giving results that are NOT lying in exactly the same manner. Last Thursdayism will create the LIE that you remember carefully building & calibrating your equipment even though it might falsely be remembered as happening over a month ago.WAIT! i see it: "using reality itself as the benchmark against which our conclusions are measured" - you mean this is where we verify that it is not LYING to us? True. But this is not at the upper level I'm talking about. I'm talking a bout a systemic universe-wide lying in everything, as in Last Thursdayism.Edited by xongsmith, : Which kind of LYING did I mean....

Straggler evades: No. I'm not going to do YOUR homework for you. This is incumbent upon you under the respectable umbrella of the forum guidelines. Yes - I could do it easily enough, but this would just make me look like your little dancing monkey.Post the link & relevant quotebox, then show how your interpretation of it follows. Should be a piece of cake. Percy has made this easy enough for all. I just want to see you do it, for once, in this long and winding exchange with my brother. I know you can.

Straggler asks: Some must be made up. Probably a goodly amount. All? Not sure. Is it a waste of time for me? Probably. Not sure. Are you considering "an untestable but evidentially baseless proposition" that is at variance with the "objectively evidenced explanation"? And why would that be ridiculous? Because science, at the outset, has had to assume that substantiated objective evidence is telling us about actual reality and not telling us LIES. Any explanation that would mean some existing body of substantiated object evidence is not only just wrong, but has been actually LYING to us, cannot be seriously considered. Note that being wrong is okay, but LYING is not. LYING requires the intention of being dishonest. Things that have been well-accepted in the scientific community have been shown to be wrong many times later on, but never have they been shown to be intentionally dishonest. And there have been instances of intentional dishonesty, but they have never been well-accepted. Who the hell is calling any of your "evidentially baseless propositions" a postulate????? Get a grip. The short answer is that the different concepts you cite are in fact different. They are all not the same kind of "evidentially baseless propositions". The notion that all of these propositions fit into the same small bucket of whatever you mean by evidentially baseless notions is flawed. Lets take a gander at some of these things you mentioned, in order: Dead twice, because it is a fiction you made up and fictions are known to be off topic; and also dead because it would imply that a significant body of substantiated objective evidence is LYING to J.K.Rowling and the world at large. Out it goes. Dead because it would imply that significant body of substantiated objective evidence is LYING to us. Out it goes. Did you make this one up? I can't digger that, but assuming the creator of this concept is not going to be forthcoming, does this proposition imply any previous evidence is LYING? E&M is one of most most exhaustively explained subjects of the various branches of science. If there is something about this that would imply E & M is lying, then out it goes. If not, then it is different from the previous ones. Shove off on to another table for a likely later dismissal by some other means. Does this imply anywhere that any existing scientific evidence is LYING? Not that I know of. Shove off on to another table for a likely later dismissal by some other means. Implies that existing scientific evidence is LYING. Out it goes. This one must be your characterization of ZD's Deist God who "went off elsewhere to other things". Does this proposition imply anywhere that any existing scientific evidence is LYING? No. Shove off on to another table for a likely later dismissal by some other means. Does this proposition imply anywhere that any existing scientific evidence is LYING? No. Shove off on to another table for a likely later dismissal by some other means. So, by my count, we have at least 3 different kinds of things here:1. known fictional creations, which are off topic.2. concepts that would require a universe that LIES to us, which should be off topic.3. the other stuff shoved off on to another table for a likely later dismissal by some other means. I can't sweep all of these kinds away with the single word "ridiculous" until I have seen them. These may break up into subcategories someday later by some EvC folks yet to be determined, such as those things which are constructed to make ZERO difference to the observed universe. Some can be ignored by parsimony, much in the manner of dismissing a rotating coordinate system that would fix the Earth motionless at the center of the universe. Most of them are probably "ridiculous". But all? Hmmm. Not sure.We should get away from 1. and 2. They should be ruled off topic. It's 3. that remains the issue.

Straggler replies: Well, thank you! I would have liked the bracket mid=nnnnnn endbracket link so that I could read the context of this. And thank you for your next post replying to ZD in Message 245.I must apologize for being snippy about this, but I am on a 56k dial-up and sometimes it takes me a few "reload page" attempts to get the whole page to load. I've tried the search stuff and it hangs very often. Eventually I have to give up and move on to other things. So it goes. My own fault I'm in this situation..... That is why we all should begin by assuming, a priori, that our body of substantiated objective scientific evidence is not going to be LYING to us. It won't hurt. It's just a little pin prick. I've never met any formal system that did not have at least 1 Postulate. Fascinating that you would seem to want such a system here.Okay - now, hold my hand here and take me from your quote at the top to this quote below: I'm a bit foggy right now...but then you don't have to do my homework.Edited by xongsmith, : clarity

Panda comments: There is only one assumption I am willing to concede at this point: substantiated objective scientific evidence is actually telling us about the real world and not LYING. Without this assumption, all science is virtually worthless.Do you disagree? Yes No I would merely point out, as has already been done, that J.K.Rowling wrote the books & characters. You could do this, too. Or do you doubt that she wrote the books?We have all seen other evidence of this as well on the various news media around the world. Admittedly there has not been a publication in a respected scientific journal addressing this specific issue yet, but, somehow, by concept inheritance, this has already been demonstrated for works of fiction in the past and the research time & money would be better spent elsewhere. Those with even more hands-on experience to the actual scene would even have more to add, supplying tons of additional objective evidence. I would argue that Zen Deist has indeed supplied more than enough pointers towards substantiatable objective evidence on this matter. Are you trying to be obtuse & stubborn?If you doubt that her characters are fictional, please let me know what you think they are.You are correct about populism being irrelevant. However, if, after some 450 millions of people have encountered J.K.Rowling's fictional concepts and NOT ONE of them has objected or countered with evidence that any of these supernatural characters & abilities she writes about are actually real, then, far from being argumentum ad populum, this is similar to the absence of evidence argument used to support the conclusions that supernatural beings don't exist. That is all it is, nothing more than support. The documentation of her creating fictions is the hard evidence.Perhaps you entertain the notion that Straggler's "Hogwart Hypothesis" could be true? Where are YOU on the scale? Sounds like you are taking a 4 or a 5 with your words, although I am sure you also are a 6+. I accept the fictional explanation of these horrible novels unleashed upon the gullible public based on the body of evidence seen around the world, and can also cite ZD's evidence in Message 224 and who knows what else on this to take a solid 6+ (not Chuck77's 7 estimate for Zen Deist). This is not a pseudoskeptical position. But in this case, the body of objective evidence placing the Age of the Earth at somewhere over 4 billion years is the best evidence we have. This isn't a single smoking gun incident, this is a litany - a deluge! - of corroborating evidence from many different fields of scientific endeavor. Last Thursdayism would require that all this evidence is a LIE, regardless of your opinion of intelligence or intent (I admit to being sloppy there). Back out it goes, you silly bear. Dammit, I'll get to Table 3 when you guys quit clawing away at me and dragging me down with stupid wastes of time on Tables 1 and 2. It is you & Straggler who are keeping Table 3 out of everyone else's sight by these silly misdirections and sideshows. I can assure you, Table 3 is not out of my sight! How do they say it? "Keep your eyes on the prize"? Silly silly bear...read closer. I have nothing to hide here (although I am not prepared to say that yet about Zen Deist, me own brother, when it comes to maybe a couple of things he has held back as personal - they would be off topic anyway).Can't we all just move on to Table 3? That's where the rubber hits the road.from my Message 246: Table 1, known fictional characters, and Table 2, the universe is lying, are like PRATTs that are being brought back & back & back again! You guys are coming off like those dastardly Creationists!!Look back at this: Are you thinking I'm arguing against Straggler's claim or bluegenes' claim? Which claim? Put the claim in a quotebox, please, but.... Anyway, it doesn't matter - it's the next part that sentence of that reveals your mistake. Who the hell is hiding evidence! Maybe you wish I was doing that or ZD was doing that, because then you could indeed have something to attack. But that aint what's happenin' pal. Nobody is HIDING any evidence. If you disagree, CITE with link & quotebox! On the contrary, whenever I find it, I put it out there. ZD does this too, in his own way, buried within the plethora of flashing boxes. Why do you think it's necessary to find some kind of stick of straw to poke an attack? You 2 guys seem to be in a panicked state. Remember, I'm disgruntledly on your side, even if ZD might not be. However, if there is one thing we all have in common, it's that we have all been doing the best we can to be consistent.

Zen Deist says: This is stupid. 1.00000 is never a logical position to hold. Try 1.02 or something. Allow for some doubt. There is NEVER enough substantiated objective scientific evidence accepted by the scientific community for a 1.00000. You know it, I know it, they know it, we all know it. You know why they called them "real numbers"? This isn't the fantasy world of Integer Arithmetic. Same stupid.

Panda writes: Oh i am so glad you have admitted this. I agree. Welcome to The Same Page.Regarding the myriad, voluminously published and scientifically object evidence supporting things like "The Earth has to be more than 4 billion years old, you write, as a way of defending LT: Last Thursdayism, IF YOU RECALL, says that everything was created last Thursday and it was created to make it appear in our memories as if we have memories going further back than last Thursday. WTF! This is, taken with your admitted and welcome comment... means that Last Thurdayism IS founded on giving us FALSE information to make us think there is another real world out there. Oh *gasp*!! Last Thursdayism is LYING!As I mentioned in Message 246
So - maybe I should strike the "intentional" modifiers, as I was being a little over the top there...willing to concede that....so: Is that better? Just trying to help out here..... You are not even a panda. Silly me to think that an affectionate Winnie-ther-Pooh reference might slip past you.... Neither can I, but if I was you I would put my money on "drunk". I am not here to be straight-laced & sawdust-mouthed. This is still the Internet. I'm here mostly to have a good time! Like my old friend, Robe'rt Celerier from Brasil, when he was in the bar we all were living in, ordering a rare fatty beef dish smothered in cheese and then getting accosted by this healthnut girl who urgently & honestly pointed out that what he had just ordered is not good for his health - he says: "What?! - You think I am in here for my health?"

Panda says back: Hey!You remind me of Curls in the comic strip BC.;-)In a certain way.....

Straggler writes: EEeek!!! Probably something drastic like hiding under Buzsaw's bed? Now - is this evidence substantiated objective scientific evidence? Is it at odds with previous substantiated objective scientific evidence? With no way to reconcile the difference? Naw - they would just fold it in. Oooh...I'd love to see this derivation in detail! As in: You are talking about the view of Science from Philosophy? What are the Postulates that this Philosophy of Science has to assume that allow this derivation to follow?....but nevermind! . . . perhaps you might agree that we can proceed anyway, even if this principle was only derived. Then it would be a Theorem. And we could still use this Theorem to declare all these baseless propositions that would require the body of substantiated objective scientific evidence to be LYING to us to be simply declared off topic.I'm just trying to make some progress through the weeds.

Straggler asks: I can't say all one way or the other.Things like "Hogwart's Hypothesis" or "Last Thursdayism" - these things require that the body of objective scientific evidence would be LYING to us and therefore I'll answer "NO" for those.BUT, consider RAZD's untestable Deist God...I would have to say YES, there is a barrier in that case.Note that the Known Fictional characters, such as Lord Voldemort, Superman, Casper the Ghost and others for which the creation of their character can be evidenced through the author - these concepts are in fact testible, and so they are not encountering such a barrier.I think you need to break up the grouping some.

Straggler: No - you asked, I answered. There is no wrong answer to your question as stated.However: I do want to point out that I suspect your question was deceitful and an attempt to make people slip up and provide you with weaponry to be used against them later. Your question seemed sneaky, devious and low. By restricting answers to either "Yes" or "No", which are actually entrapments in this carefully constructed question, you seem to get upset when someone says "Sometimes Yes and sometimes No."You got your answer. You didn't like it. Tough.Not only is there no wrong answer as stated, there is no right answer either. I don't need to decide anything.Some Yes, some No, some I don't have an answer for yet.
I can wait on some. Some I don't have an answer for and I'm not going to go look for one - I just don't care.Try again, Straggler.

Golden Ratio writes: So you also are agreeing with me that a few Straggling cases could be a Yes instead of a blanket No on all cases? And who knows what they might be either, before Straggler asks any of us which ones?

My brother writes: Is that ALL gods? Or just the ones that are convenient? And what is an "Atheist", when we are considering Dawkins Scales or RAZD scales? Who might they be here?

ZD writes: I'd like to think of it as an open interval, (1,7), on the real number line. 6+ would be the interval [6,7), where 6 is included in the set.If you want to be in [6,7) or if you want to be in (1,2], then it is incumbent upon you to provide objective substantiatable scientific evidence supporting your position. If you cannot provide it or will not provide it (there's that unable/unwilling thing again), then you must back off towards the agnostic center, (2,6).You can however hold any opinion you would want.Actually on 3rd thought, even the (2,6) folk should give reasons why.Yeah, maybe we should just junk the whole thing.p.s.
As for FACT...Isn't scientific fact still tentative to a tiny degree? Wouldn't that just be something like 1.0002? (And it's complement, NOT(a non-FACT) 6.9998?)