Scientific Knowledge

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.

People can be wrong.
Evidence never lies. Nope.
Not a lie. Just incorrectly interpreted.
Back in it goes. It seems you now think I am a bear.
I am not. TBH, I can't tell if you are drunk when replying.

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?"

Ok.
I'll leave you to continue quoting and replying to your own posts.

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

See Message 267Given that you have changed both the question asked and and the scale used to answer it - This just isn't true.Straggler: Do you like cheese?
RAZD: How many times must I keep repeating that I like jam!!! If perpetually changing your little exercises in pseuod-logic to increasingly give you the answers you want is "refinement" then your arguments must be very "refined" indeed.Looking in from outside your bubble it looks more like a case of ever increasing circles.

And what would science do if we found evidence to the contrary? The point is that this isn't an axiom or a "postulate" it is a derived conclusion.To all practical intents we may treat it as a postulate. But the question of whether or not objective reality as experienced actually exists is a large part of the philosophy of science and your approach is far far too simplistic. From Plato's cave to Cartesian doubt these questions have been considered. They have been considered and philosophical answers have been derived. And since it is something that is derived that means it is not an axiom or a postulate but is rather a derived conclusion.There is a difference between starting from a baseless assumption (your "postulate") and starting from imperfect and potentially fallible knowledge (i.e that which is actually the result of a collection of imperfect observations that so far have yet to be contradicted).

To quote Omnivorous's previous response to you (and I am starting to think it is the correct response for most of your posts in this thread):

quote:

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Err...umm...

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Thanks for the reply, have a nice day.

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It might be a problem if I had said that. But I haven't.What I have said is that untestability/unfalsifiability isn't a barrier to de-facto atheistic rejection. As for when to apply - Does the phrase "evidentially baseless" ring any bells? What foundation of science?If you think the only reason we can reject things like the 1 second universe proposition, the only reason we can scientifically know what it is that my soon-to-be-dropped-pen will do, is because we conveniently and baselessly assume away the unevidenced alternatives - Then you are a fool.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

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.

If you think that science is an axiomatic/postulate based system you are going to have to state what the axioms/postulates of science actually are. I doubt you will be able to do this. In fairness - I once thought as you do. But after investigating the issue myself and seeing the arguments made by our resident philosophy buffs here at EvC (Mod and Rrhain primarily) I came to realise how flawed this approach is. Well science arguably leans on a number of philosophical positions combined to various extents. Some of the following possibly:Fallibilism
Correspondence
Pragmatism
Coherentism
Parsimony(A quick nod to Mod for the links) With that in mind....I am going to ask all of the participants of any consequence in this thread the same question. Question: - Does the fact that a given proposition is untestable preclude a de-facto atheist stance (i.e. 6 on the Dawkins scale) from being rationally taken towards that proposition?NOTE: I am not remotely suggesting that untestability demands that an atheistic stance be rationally taken for any given proposition. I am asking if untestability acts as a BARRIER to such a stance being taken.If you choose to reply feel free to explain your answer but please do make sure that it is clear as to whether you are in the YES or NO camp.Xongsmith - Given your 6 position on the untestable "Hogwarts Hypothesis" I expect you to be in the NO camp.

Hello. I am going to ask all of the participants of any consequence in this thread the same question. Question: - Does the fact that a given proposition is untestable preclude a de-facto atheist stance (i.e. 6 on the Dawkins scale) from being rationally taken towards that proposition?NOTE: I am not remotely suggesting that untestability demands that an atheistic stance be rationally taken for any given proposition. I am asking if untestability acts as a BARRIER to such a stance being taken.If you choose to reply feel free to explain your answer but please do make sure that it is clear as to whether you are in the YES or NO camp.

Hello. I am going to ask all of the participants of any consequence in this thread the same question. Question: - Does the fact that a given proposition is untestable preclude a de-facto atheist stance (i.e. 6 on the Dawkins scale) from being rationally taken towards that proposition?NOTE: I am not remotely suggesting that untestability demands that an atheistic stance be rationally taken for any given proposition. I am asking if untestability acts as a BARRIER to such a stance being taken.If you choose to reply feel free to explain your answer but please do make sure that it is clear as to whether you are in the YES or NO camp.

Hello. I am going to ask all of the participants of any consequence in this thread the same question. Question: - Does the fact that a given proposition is untestable preclude a de-facto atheist stance (i.e. 6 on the Dawkins scale) from being rationally taken towards that proposition?NOTE: I am not remotely suggesting that untestability demands that an atheistic stance be rationally taken for any given proposition. I am asking if untestability acts as a BARRIER to such a stance being taken.If you choose to reply feel free to explain your answer but please do make sure that it is clear as to whether you are in the YES or NO camp.