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Author | Topic: The "science" of Miracles | |||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
That question is self-contradictory. If there is scientific evidence for an event, there are necessarily possible scientific explanations and by definition it is not a miracle.
This thread is attempting to ask the question, "What if there were scientific evidence of a miracle?" Percy writes:
Attribution is by a person. There is no person choosing a slit so there is no possibility of attribution. The situation we're talking about is where Reverend Jim attributes the choice of slit to a supernatural cause while Scientist George says he doesn't know why or how the choice was made. But scientist George doen't call the choice a "miracle"; he just keeps looking for the why and how.
If choice of slit requires no attribution, in other words, if some scientific phenomena require no attribution, why should a miracle? Percy writes:
Why would we discuss that? We know that scientific consensus would never call something a miracle. You might as well discuss a scientific consensus on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
In this thread we're discussing miracles in a scientific context by considering the question, "What if a phenomenon occurred that presented us sufficient scientific evidence to form a consensus within science that it was a miracle?" Percy writes:
Yes we are. Those are the only people who call something a miracle.
We're not talking about the conclusions of ignorant or unscientific observers. Percy writes:
It's only the attribution to supernatural causes that makes it a "miracle". Look at the miracle of the sun. The Catholic Church attributes it to a supernatural cause. Science does not.
How would it make it any less a miracle if there were no attribution? Percy writes:
The Catholic Church attributes a particular observation of the sun's activity to supernatural causes. Science does not. A miracle is the attribution of an event to supernatural causes.
From the perspective of science the sun is an entirely natural phenomenon, the Catholic Church notwithstanding. The sun is not a scientific miracle. Percy writes:
And science has never encountered a true fairy before. That's why the "phenomenon" of fairies is called a fairy tale.
But science has never encountered a true miracle before. Percy writes:
Nothing is "inexplicable" according to science. It may be unexplained temporarily.
That the phenomenon is inexplicable according to science is part of the scenario. Percy writes:
The actual problem here is that you refuse to consider what people actually call miracles. Look at the miracle of the sun. It is called a "miracle" by people who can't explain it but it is not called a miracle by science. Science tries to explain it. The actual problem is your refusal to consider a hypothetical miracle. Your what-if scenario is like closing down the Patent Office because everything possible has already been invented. Science isn't going to quit just because you make up a fairy tale about a flying bridge. Science is never going to conclude "insert miracle here".
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
If you take your car to a mechanic, do you expect him to say, "It can't be fixed," or "It's going to cost a lot to fix it"? So you are suggesting that one cannot ever ascribe something as miraculous if they have any scientific education? People who are science-minded will say, "I wonder how that happened," and try to figure it out.
Phat writes:
I'm not avoiding the terminology. I'm saying that science doesn't use it.
Why is it so important to avoid the terminology? Phat writes:
Nonsense. I didn't say that science "will" find all the answers or even that it "can" find all the answers. I'm said that it will never quit trying.
ringo writes:
You are giving science far more faith than it warrants. Nothing is "inexplicable" according to science. Phat writes:
Yes I did. I became a believer the same way you did, by swallowing hook-line-and-sinker what my society said was "the Truth". Then I became an unbeliever by recognizing that it wasn't true.
No wonder you never became a believer. Phat writes:
Nonsense. I could have ZERO faith in science ever finding the answer to anything. What I'm talking about is the fact that science will keep looking, no matter how good or bad their record is.
You put way more faith in science than it has earned. Phat writes:
The bigger philosophical questions are mostly garbage.
The bigger philosophical questions will never be concluded by experiments.
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
Show us an example of something that is actually called a miracle where there is no attribution.
But the attribution is *not* inherent. There can be an absence of attribution. Percy writes:
That's the opposite of tentativity. Tentativity in science means that even if something seems to be a miracle, we can never rule out the possibility that a natural explanation will be found. That's why scientists don't call things miracles. ringo writes:
Tentativity rules out such absolute declarations. We know that scientific consensus would never call something a miracle. Look at the miracle of the sun. The Catholic Church calls it a miracle. Scientists do not.
Percy writes:
So give us some examples of scientific papers where scientists call an event a miracle.
In my bridge scenario there would be many scientific observers calling it a miracle. Percy writes:
You haven't shown that. In the miracle of the sun, the only distinction between the Church's attitude and the scientists' attitude is that the Church attributes the event to supernatural causes.
ringo writes:
We've been over this. This is false. A miracle is the attribution of an event to supernatural causes. Percy writes:
We've had evidence of fairies. Science determined that it was faked.
So can I guess that you'd also be unwilling to consider the hypothetical scenario of uncovering evidence for fairies? Percy writes:
That's what makes the scenario nonsensical. Nothing is "inexplicable" to science, even if it is temporarily unexplained.
Sorry, but that's part of the scenario, that the phenomenon is inexplicable according to known science. Percy writes:
You're the only one who seems to want to.
If you don't feel like discussing that scenario that doesn't mean no one else can. Percy writes:
But science doesn't define "miracle" at all. It doesn't need to.
Defining miracle as inexplicable according to natural or scientific laws is a perfectly acceptable scientific definition. Percy writes:
Of course it could. It has been avoided for centuries despite the observation of phenomena that were temporarily unexplained.
But if the right phenomenon presented itself, one inexplicable by natural or scientific laws, then the terminology couldn't be avoided, could it.
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
No. I'm saying that science doesn't use it.
You are saying that *you* don't use it. Phat writes:
It has nothing to do with authority. If you know of examples where science refers to miracles, please post them.
You don't have the authority to speak for all who use science on a daily basis---either as a career or as a tool. Phat writes:
When they're doing science, they don't refer to miracles.
Many of them attend churches, some are believers, and others are not, but the fact is that science as a discipline only extends as far into their daily lives as they choose to let it do. Phat writes:
Nonsense. Science is collective.
Science is used as far as an individual takes it. Phat writes:
Of course there is. Science stops at the evidence.
There is no rule regarding where science stops and faith and belief begin. Phat writes:
Nonsense. I'm not a scientist at all. I never even started trying.
ringo writes:
You are projecting. What you again seem to be saying is that *you* will never stop trying. I didn't say that science "will" find all the answers or even that it "can" find all the answers. I'm said that it will never quit trying. Phat writes:
Evidence is evident to everybody. That's what evident means.
Thus the evidence in your mind was evident to you...but not by decree to everyone!
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
Exactly. Miracles are not referred to by science because miracles are religion.
We're talking science, not religion, and the scenario is for something unprecedented in the history of science. There is no science to refer back to concerning miracles. Percy writes:
But science doesn't define miracles any more than it defines gods or leprechauns.
Of course science will have a different and presumably more precise definition of miracle than religious groups, and we're talking science here. Percy writes:
I'm willing to consider evidence on any subject. But evidence can not point to a "miracle".
Was I correct to assume that you'd be unwilling to consider such a hypothetical scenario?
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
No it doesn't. "Miracle" doesn't distinguish between flying bridges and dark matter and Bigfoot, etc. If science was going to introduce new terminology for flying bridges, ir would be more likely to call them "flying bridges" than to borrow religious terminology.
Were my hypothetical floating bridge scenario to happen we would need new scientific terminology, and the term "miracle" certainly fits the bill. Percy writes:
Well, you're proposing "miracle" for the phenomenon of flying bridges, which have not been observed.
If you know of examples of new scientific terminology being introduced before any observations or theoretical hints of the phenomenon, please post them.
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
And it still doesn't.
Miracles are not referred to by science because up until my thought experiment no scientific evidence for miracles existed. Percy writes:
And it still doesn't.
Science didn't define miracles up until my thought experiment. Percy writes:
I'm presuming to predict that scientists in the future will not throw up their hands and say, "it's a miracle!"
So you're presuming to know what the future will bring? Percy writes:
I explained why it doesn't:
Percy writes:
Yes it does. Were my hypothetical floating bridge scenario to happen we would need new scientific terminology, and the term "miracle" certainly fits the bill.
ringo writes: No it doesn't.quote: Percy writes:
In the case of gravity, we have actual events observed by actual people. Apples fall every day. The case of the flying bridge is just a made-up fairy tale. There is no "phenomenon".
It is the phenomena that caused the bridge to float 50 miles up the Hudson that are important. The bridge is not the phenomenon. We don't call gravity "apple" because it was first observed (by someone with sufficient scientific acumen) acting on an apple. Percy writes:
Rumpelstiltskin was observed spinning straw into gold in exatly the same way. But the brothers Grimm didn't call it a thought experiment and scientists would not have called it a miracle.
... the George Washington Bridge floating 50 miles up the Hudson *was* observed in my thought experiment. Percy writes:
That's an absurd analogy. We have a long list of anecdotal evidence about what "might" happen if somebody climbed a tree. We have no data on flying bridges or flying pigs. A "thought experiment" on non-existent data can produce any number of results but none of them are useful without a connection to reality.
If someone said, "What might happen if Bob climbed that tree," it would be idiotic to object to consideration of that possibility on the grounds that as of that point in time Bob had not climbed the tree.
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Of course we're allowed to speculate. We can speculate all we like about what if pigs could fly. What we should not do is claim that scientists would call flying pigs a miracle. In essence, are you saying that we are never allowed to speculate? A test pilot in an experimental aircraft in an uncontrolled spin will not go screaming to his death. He'll be trying this and trying that - "What if I flip this switch? What if I turn left?" - until he augers into the ground. The embarrassment of not being able to figure it out is worse than death. It's been called "the right stuff". Scientists are the same.
Phat writes:
Let's be more precise in out use of the word "hypothesis". Every tale about flying pigs or fairies is not a hypothesis. Unless we can test it, we shouldn't be calling it a "hypothesis".
Or present a hypothetical scenario that has not actually occurred?
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
Asked and answered. If evidence for an event existed, scientists would examine the evidence and try to come up with an explanation. They would not declare it "inexplicable".
But we're asking, "What if it did?" Percy writes:
I have no difficulty with the concept of pigs flying. What I'm disputing is your certainty (Message 266) that, "A consensus of scientists would most certainly concede they're miraculous." I think the evidence shows that they most certainly would not.
You seem to be having a great deal of difficulty understanding the concept of posing a "what if". Percy writes:
The objection is not on the grounds that your scenario has never been observed. The objection is on the grounds that your scenario, by your own description, is impossible according to everything we know about science. A person climbing a tree is repeatable. We can ask, "What if Bob climbed the tree?" and then watch him do it, or we can watch somebody else do it and extrapolate the results to Bob. Your analogy is bad because your "thought experiment" can not be tested, can not be connected to reality in any way.
My analogy made clear precisely why it was absurd to object to my thought experiment on the grounds that it had never before been observed to happen. Percy writes:
But we don't decide that, "A consensus of scientists would most certainly concede they're miraculous," (Message 266) based on data that is currently non-existent.
Everything we know in science is based upon data that was at one time non-existent. Percy writes:
Of course not. I'm predicting what scientists would do based on what they have done in the past.
Now you're presuming to dictate to science which terms are off-limits for newly discovered phenomena? Percy writes:
You have it backwards. You're the one who is predicting that, "A consensus of scientists would most certainly concede they're miraculous." (Message 266) I'm just saying the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. If scientists didn't call something they didn't understand a "miracle" in the past, why would they do it in the future?
For you to declare you know in advance that science would eschew the term "miracle" for these phenomena seems not just more than a bit arrogant and autocratic, but also misguided. Percy writes:
Where you went wrong is in suggesting that they would stop at "miracle". They would not stop.
... I have in at least several posts described how hard scientists would work to understand the new phenomena....
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
That isn't very long. Science develops tentative explanations pretty quickly, so they have no need to call something "inexplicable".
For as long as they fail to develop an explanation.... Percy writes:
Every scientific paper that doesn't fall back on "miracles".
ringo writes:
What evidence? I think the evidence shows that they most certainly would not. Percy writes:
Sure there is. When scientists discovered that a lot of matter seems to be "missing" in the universe, that had never been observed before. What they did was hypothesize a new kind of "dark" matter that can not be observed by conventional methods - and they began to look for new ways to observe it. They did not call it a miracle.
For phenomena of a type never before observed? There's no past behavior to go on. Percy writes:
So you and Tangle are fine-tuning your preferred definition of miracles by dragging it even farther from reality. I gave examples of past phenomena like black body radiation, the ether, and the precession of the orbit of Mercury that were things we didn't used to understand that were completely different in nature from the phenomena I've described. That's why they weren't called miracles. Also, as Tangle has pointed out, miracles are local phenomena (in both time and place), another difference. Real-life phenomena that have no current explanation are not miracles. Agreed. And events that are called miracles by some, such as the Miracle of the Sun, are beneath you so you refuse to discuss them. So the only "real" miracles are flying bridges. But what has that got to do with science?
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
Your 'events' are not "unprecedented" - they're made up. In the real world of real events - including events like the Miracle of the Sun - the only place we have to look for guidance is the existing body of scientific research.
It's already been pointed out to you several times that these events are without precedent, that you can't look to the existing body of scientific research for guidance, yet instead of addressing that aspect you just keep saying the same thing. Percy writes:
Nothing has the qualities that you and Tangle proposed. You proposed a fairy tale, which is why science has no reason to deal with it.
None of these phenomena have the qualities that Tangle and I proposed: a) breaking existing scientific laws in unexplainable ways; and b) locality of events. Percy writes:
You don't have to make up fairy tales. You could look at real reports of "miracles, such as the Miracle of the Sun. And of course, science does not call them miracles.
... how would science react were it to encounter a true miracle? In order to consider that question you have to propose some miracles. Percy writes:
Of course it's relevant - because the Catholic Church is the only one calling it a miracle.
We're doing science here, not religion, and the opinion of the Catholic Church about the Miracle of the Sun isn't relevant.
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
You're tailoring those "needs" to your preferred definition of miracle, which is incorrect. If you'd like to propose a miracle for us to consider it needs to have the same qualities provided by the thought experiments: a) break known natural or scientific laws in unexplainable ways; b) be local; c) leave behind evidence amenable to scientific analysis. The point of the Miracle of the Sun is that the Catholic Church calls it a miracle while scientists do not. The only thing that makes an event a miracle is somebody attributing it to unnatural causes.
Percy writes:
Miracles are religion, not science.
We're still doing science here, not religion.
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
First, I don't have that kind of power. Nothing I say is going to have any effect whatsoever on science. ... you are campaigning to get science to distance itself from any vocabulary hinting at such. Second, science has already distanced itself from that vocabulary. I have asked repeatedly for any evidence that science uses the word "miracle". I don't think you'll find any.
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
It's important to understand that it's only "inexplicable" to the people who call it a miracle.
So that's essentially your whole point, then? That Percy chose the wrong word to define an unexplainable event that appeared to contradict natural and scientific laws? Phat writes:
Indeed. And scientists don't use the word "miracle".
My conclusion is that people---scientists included---can use whatever word they want.
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Percy writes:
Your "rebuttals" have been addressed. You're just refusing to accept reality - scientists do not use the word "miracle". You refuse to discuss what (some) people actually do all "miracles".
You're just recycling arguments you raised previously that have already been rebutted.
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