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Author Topic:   The "science" of Miracles
frako
Member (Idle past 305 days)
Posts: 2932
From: slovenija
Joined: 09-04-2010


Message 391 of 696 (826832)
01-11-2018 6:34 AM
Reply to: Message 387 by Phat
01-10-2018 12:08 PM


Re: Consensus
Falls was obeying the law of gravity before there was a law and before gravity was defined as an idea.
Thats because gravity is not an idea its a phenomenon. That we described using the idea that we can understand the universe by observing testing measuring.

Christianity, One woman's lie about an affair that got seriously out of hand
What are the Christians gonna do to me ..... Forgive me, good luck with that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 387 by Phat, posted 01-10-2018 12:08 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 392 of 696 (826837)
01-11-2018 11:15 AM
Reply to: Message 379 by Phat
01-09-2018 12:21 PM


Re: Consensus
Exactly. But science existed before we did. We just formalized it.
Who are you referring to as "we". Mankind? Folks born in the 20th century? Folks born after the 17th century?

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I was thinking as long as I have my hands up they’re not going to shoot me. This is what I’m thinking they’re not going to shoot me. Wow, was I wrong. -- Charles Kinsey
We got a thousand points of light for the homeless man. We've got a kinder, gentler, machine gun hand. Neil Young, Rockin' in the Free World.
Worrying about the "browning of America" is not racism. -- Faith
I hate you all, you hate me -- Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 379 by Phat, posted 01-09-2018 12:21 PM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 395 by Phat, posted 01-11-2018 5:03 PM NoNukes has not replied

  
NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 393 of 696 (826839)
01-11-2018 2:40 PM
Reply to: Message 387 by Phat
01-10-2018 12:08 PM


Mona Lisa
Did the Mona Lisa exist before Davinci?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 387 by Phat, posted 01-10-2018 12:08 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
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frako
Member (Idle past 305 days)
Posts: 2932
From: slovenija
Joined: 09-04-2010


Message 394 of 696 (826840)
01-11-2018 3:06 PM
Reply to: Message 393 by NosyNed
01-11-2018 2:40 PM


Re: Mona Lisa
she did, well most likely a he and his gay lover. But if your talking about the painting no

Christianity, One woman's lie about an affair that got seriously out of hand
What are the Christians gonna do to me ..... Forgive me, good luck with that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 393 by NosyNed, posted 01-11-2018 2:40 PM NosyNed has not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 395 of 696 (826845)
01-11-2018 5:03 PM
Reply to: Message 392 by NoNukes
01-11-2018 11:15 AM


Re: Consensus
Mankind. But I get the counter-arguments, and they do make sense. My basic argument is that something can exist before humans get ahold of trying to define and explain it. But perhaps your point is that science had no name before humans defined and conceptualized it.
*looks around*
How did I get on this rabbit trail anyway? Now, where was I?

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 392 by NoNukes, posted 01-11-2018 11:15 AM NoNukes has not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 396 of 696 (826846)
01-11-2018 5:07 PM
Reply to: Message 376 by ringo
01-09-2018 11:58 AM


A Bridge Too Far
ringo writes:
What better source can you name?
Ahhh now I get it. ringo and I were debating whether my hypothetical God was a better source than ringo.
Who will argue that he relies on science and human reasoning. Whereupon I will state that I believe in the Creator of humanity. Whereas we will drift off into a cosmological origins argument.
Which by that time it will be time for dinner.
Lets get back to Percys Bridge. Have we agreed that it is unexplainable and that it is up to the individual to label it a miracle or not?

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 376 by ringo, posted 01-09-2018 11:58 AM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 409 by ringo, posted 01-26-2018 11:04 AM Phat has not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 397 of 696 (826893)
01-13-2018 2:22 PM
Reply to: Message 390 by Percy
01-10-2018 4:06 PM


Re: Consensus
Percy writes:
What gets called a miracle is generally something that a person or group can't explain, not what science can't explain.
Thus your hypothetical bridge example is an event that occurs and is observed by a hypothetical group of people. Perhaps one question we can ask is how this group of observers responds to the bridge event.
Percy writes:
it's not that "science...doesn't include the possibility of miracles," it's that there's insufficient evidence (approximately none) for miracles.
And likely there would be no evidence for the floating bridge. Perhaps the question we would then address is how each observer reacted and whether the science-minded observers reached any other conclusions than did those who believed in miracles and in God (or even UFO's or other supernatural phenomena)
Perhaps the purpose of your hypothetical event is to stir up a conversation as to how each one of us would hypothetically react were we to observe this bridge moving.
Would we approach this event with a scientific mind or would we approach it with the awe that society might approach a hypothetical event such as The Rapture?
As an added bonus question...what if we reframed your hypothesis and said plainly that God moved the bridge? Would that evoke a different reaction among our control group of observers? Would the science-minded approach the hypothesis in the same way or would they tend to laugh off the foregone conclusion? In other words is there any difference between an unnamed supernatural event and a named one?

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 390 by Percy, posted 01-10-2018 4:06 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 399 by Percy, posted 01-13-2018 4:07 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 398 of 696 (826896)
01-13-2018 2:32 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by ringo
12-15-2017 10:39 AM


Re: Definition Of Terms
Perhaps the purpose of Percys hypothetical event is to stir up a conversation as to how each one of us would hypothetically react were we to observe this bridge moving.
Would we approach this event with a scientific mind or would we approach it with the awe that society might approach a hypothetical event such as The Rapture?
ringo writes:
If something "breaks" natural law, we change our understanding of the natural law.
That makes sense. Thus if millions of people *suddenly* disappeared, leaving piles of clothes behind, and the evidence showed that many of them were wearing crosses, we would still not properly conclude that any sort of Rapture happened, correct? We would simply seek to better understand the natural law of gravity.
ringo writes:
If the observations don't fit our understanding, the first thing we question is the observations. Unless the observations can be verified, we have no business calling it a miracle.
So what if the observations were verified? What if many witnesses reported seeing someone in front of them who reportedly vanished?

Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain "
~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by ringo, posted 12-15-2017 10:39 AM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 400 by Percy, posted 01-13-2018 4:18 PM Phat has replied
 Message 410 by ringo, posted 01-26-2018 11:11 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 399 of 696 (826898)
01-13-2018 4:07 PM
Reply to: Message 397 by Phat
01-13-2018 2:22 PM


Re: Consensus
Phat writes:
Percy writes:
What gets called a miracle is generally something that a person or group can't explain, not what science can't explain.
Thus your hypothetical bridge example is an event that occurs and is observed by a hypothetical group of people. Perhaps one question we can ask is how this group of observers responds to the bridge event.
I think when you read my Message 390 that you thought I was saying something I wasn't. Rephrasing slightly, I was only agreeing with Ringo that people or groups have called certain events or phenomena miracles only because *they* can't explain them, not because *science* can't explain them. My interest in this discussion is only in events or phenomena that *science* can't explain. I interpret this thread as being about whether there can be such a thing as The "science" of Miracles.
So because "a group of observers" isn't science, this group observing the George Washington Bridge gently separating from its moorings and floating up into the sky and northward does not qualify as science. You need scientific observations. That requires the data gathered by scientists who rushed equipment into helicopters and airplanes and made measurements (electrical, magnetic, gravitational, temperature, mass, length, width, height, effects on cars and trucks and people, etc.), as well as subsequent studies of the original location of the bridge and of the bridge itself at its new location at West Point.
Percy writes:
it's not that "science...doesn't include the possibility of miracles," it's that there's insufficient evidence (approximately none) for miracles.
And likely there would be no evidence for the floating bridge.
There should be an abundance of evidence, pretty much the evidence I described being gathered in my previous paragraph.
Perhaps the question we would then address is how each observer reacted and whether the science-minded observers reached any other conclusions than did those who believed in miracles and in God (or even UFO's or other supernatural phenomena)
I consider myself science-minded, but even if I happened to be driving north on the New Jersey Turnpike and approaching the bridge when the miracle occurred, I don't think my observations would be worth much. New York City has a population of about 9 million, more during a weekday, so there would be plenty of people to see it, but scientifically verifying it was a miracle (an event inexplicable by natural or scientific laws) and not just the work of a mad scientist or some DARPA program gone wrong would require scientific study.
Perhaps the purpose of your hypothetical event is to stir up a conversation as to how each one of us would hypothetically react were we to observe this bridge moving.
No, I'm pretty much only interested in phenomena that can be scientifically studied.
Would we approach this event with a scientific mind or would we approach it with the awe that society might approach a hypothetical event such as The Rapture?
But science and society are not synonymous. Much of society here in the states rejects evolution, and that has no effect on the science of evolution. In the same way, regardless how society views the bridge miracle, it is the scientific results that will be used to form a consensus pro or con regarding whether it was a real miracle.
As an added bonus question...what if we reframed your hypothesis and said plainly that God moved the bridge?
First you'd need scientific evidence for God.
Would that evoke a different reaction among our control group of observers? Would the science-minded approach the hypothesis in the same way or would they tend to laugh off the foregone conclusion?
If you look back through my replies to Ringo you'll see that in many of them I ask how would science react were a real miracle to occur. Every individual would decide for themselves whether to accept the scientific consensus.
In other words is there any difference between an unnamed supernatural event and a named one?
If we're still talking science here, first you'd need scientific evidence of the supernatural.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 397 by Phat, posted 01-13-2018 2:22 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 401 by NoNukes, posted 01-13-2018 11:02 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 400 of 696 (826899)
01-13-2018 4:18 PM
Reply to: Message 398 by Phat
01-13-2018 2:32 PM


Re: Definition Of Terms
Phat writes:
Perhaps the purpose of Percys hypothetical event is to stir up a conversation as to how each one of us would hypothetically react were we to observe this bridge moving.
No, that's not science. I'm interested in how science would react, not individuals. Science is a consensus activity constructed around experiment and/or observation followed by analysis, replication, and fitting into a theoretical framework. Since a miracle is something we can observe but not initiate, replication of the observations would depend upon whether more miracles occurred.
So what if the observations were verified? What if many witnesses reported seeing someone in front of them who reportedly vanished?
Scientific observations would provide the necessary data to rule miracles in or out. Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable. A million people swearing they saw something is still just anecdotal.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 398 by Phat, posted 01-13-2018 2:32 PM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 493 by Phat, posted 02-09-2018 11:44 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 401 of 696 (826905)
01-13-2018 11:02 PM
Reply to: Message 399 by Percy
01-13-2018 4:07 PM


Re: Consensus
You need scientific observations. That requires the data gathered by scientists who rushed equipment into helicopters and airplanes and made measurements (electrical, magnetic, gravitational, temperature, mass, length, width, height, effects on cars and trucks and people, etc.), as well as subsequent studies of the original location of the bridge and of the bridge itself at its new location at West Point.
Science does not require all of that stuff and it does not require scientists.
Observations are required, but often the data used in science is stuff that anyone can see with the naked eye.
For something like a floating human body in an auditorium, I believe an investigation to rule out natural causes could be conducted without anything more than observations, a couple of paper clips, some sticks, and some paper to take notes on.
For a floating bridge, a bit more is requires because of the scale of the problem, but it is also the case because of the forces required, the natural candidates for such an event are extremely limited. But let's not make science and the scientific method anything more than what they are. One of your other posts contains an excellent description of the scientific method. It's not about getting a bunch of folks in lab smocks to participate.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
We got a thousand points of light for the homeless man. We've got a kinder, gentler, machine gun hand. Neil Young, Rockin' in the Free World.
Worrying about the "browning of America" is not racism. -- Faith
I hate you all, you hate me -- Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 399 by Percy, posted 01-13-2018 4:07 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 402 by Percy, posted 01-15-2018 9:35 AM NoNukes has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 402 of 696 (826963)
01-15-2018 9:35 AM
Reply to: Message 401 by NoNukes
01-13-2018 11:02 PM


Re: Consensus
NoNukes writes:
Science does not require all of that stuff and it does not require scientists.
Observations are required, but often the data used in science is stuff that anyone can see with the naked eye.
We'll just have to disagree on this one. Increasingly throughout the progress of the science, just as the ability of the layperson to work on his car or on the web has decreased over time, science has increasingly required specialized education, training and equipment, not to mention the ability to document for purposes of replication and to conceptualize for purposes of generalization into theory.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 401 by NoNukes, posted 01-13-2018 11:02 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 403 by NoNukes, posted 01-15-2018 8:47 PM Percy has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 403 of 696 (827027)
01-15-2018 8:47 PM
Reply to: Message 402 by Percy
01-15-2018 9:35 AM


Re: Consensus
Increasingly throughout the progress of the science, just as the ability of the layperson to work on his car or on the web has decreased over time, science has increasingly required specialized education, training and equipment, not to mention the ability to document for purposes of replication and to conceptualize for purposes of generalization into theory.
Working on the bleeding edge of science may require sophisticated tools. Determining whether there is a natural explanation for what appears to be a man floating in the middle of the room requires substantially less sophistication. I suspect that you can leave the LIGO's Interferometer at home for that task.
The basics behind the scientific method haven't changed all that much since Galileo's day. You are right. We are going to disagree on this one.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
We got a thousand points of light for the homeless man. We've got a kinder, gentler, machine gun hand. Neil Young, Rockin' in the Free World.
Worrying about the "browning of America" is not racism. -- Faith
I hate you all, you hate me -- Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 402 by Percy, posted 01-15-2018 9:35 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 404 by Percy, posted 01-16-2018 7:28 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 404 of 696 (827077)
01-16-2018 7:28 PM
Reply to: Message 403 by NoNukes
01-15-2018 8:47 PM


Re: Consensus
NoNukes writes:
Determining whether there is a natural explanation for what appears to be a man floating in the middle of the room requires substantially less sophistication.
Even scientists are often not up to the task of separating science from flim-flam, a point The Amazing Randi made very clear.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 403 by NoNukes, posted 01-15-2018 8:47 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 405 of 696 (827487)
01-26-2018 10:48 AM
Reply to: Message 383 by Phat
01-09-2018 12:41 PM


Re: Consensus
Phat writes:
Everyone is trying to get you to accept the possibility of miracles.
The topic is the science of miracles. It's science that doesn't accept miracles.
Phat writes:
I realize that evidence is not always available and is usually not plentiful even if available.
If there isn't enough evidence to decide one way or another, then one belief is as good as another.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 383 by Phat, posted 01-09-2018 12:41 PM Phat has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 411 by Percy, posted 01-26-2018 3:19 PM ringo has replied

  
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