A proper understanding of logical fallacies will improve the quality of debate

Hi Taq,So, just to pick an example completely at random, if a person were to write; then that would be an argument from incredulity? That's fascinating. I'm sure glad that no-one around here has written anything like that recently.Learning about logic is fun! Mutate and Survive

Hi designtheorist, I would not say that. I would rather say that creationists and supernaturalists are using their minds in unscientific ways. The idea of a "scientific mind" or an "unscientific mind" is unscientific. You mention of this notion is also a good example of the fallacy commonly known as a strawman, since I'm don't think that anyone here has argued that minds fall into these categories. Except that - for the N^th time - you haven't presented any such examples. The examples you claimed were bullshit. This is the well known fallacy of "talking bullshit, ignoring it when your bullshit gets called out and continuing to talk bullshit". It is when you make false claims about what people believe, yeah. Especially when we point out that you are getting it wrong and you just keep repeating the claim as though nothing had happened. I don't know, when did you last have it?It's always in the last place you look isn't it? Oh please! I challenge you to cite one person on these boards saying anything so foolish. In actual fact, I recall many examples of evolutionists patiently explaining to loopy creationists that there is such a thing as a religious scientist.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

My, how gracious of you honour me with a response. Expert in relativity yes. He made observations that helped validate relativity. I know who he was. But he was not an atheist. He was a quaker. Just like I told you the first time.

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During World War I Eddington became embroiled in controversy within the British astronomical and scientific communities. Many astronomers, chief among them H.H. Turner, argued that scientific relations with all of the Central Powers should be permanently ended due to their conduct in the war. Eddington, a Quaker pacifist, struggled to keep wartime bitterness out of astronomy. He repeatedly called for British scientists to preserve their pre-war friendships and collegiality with German scientists.

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from wiki; Arthur Eddington - WikipediaNote that WWI took place before the Big Bang was conceived of, so I cannot see how the BB is supposed to have convinced the "atheist" Eddington to take up theism, as per your original claim. He was already a theist, namely a quaker.

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As a Quaker, Eddington felt able to link modern physics — relativity and quantum theory — to his faith. He did not expect science to prove religious propositions, but saw no dichotomy between personal religious experience and the new physics. He saw a bond between religious mysticism and the feeling of inspiration often experienced by scientists — the eureka moments which sometimes come before a major breakthrough. His views on religion and science were expressed in several publications, most notably in The Nature of the Physical World (1927) and in his Swarthmore lecture of 1929, Science and the Unseen World.

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Source; http://www.quaker.org.uk/arthur-stanley-eddington-1882-1944

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It is argued that Eddington's religious beliefs as a lifelong Quaker
were directly related to his philosophy of physical science and his quest for
a 'fundamental theory' of the most basic relationships in the physical world.
He was trying to reconcile, or even to unite, the two most important things in
his life: the excitement of scientific research and the profundity of his own
mystical experience. In each realm alike, he saw himself as a seeker led by an
'Inner Light'. In neither did he claim to have reached the goal. The reactions
of philosophers and theologians contemporary with Eddington is examined,
and some attempt is made to assess the value of his ideas today.

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Source; A Most Rare Vision: Eddington's Thinking on
the Relation between Science and Religion by Alan H Battenfound here; http://www.scientificexploration.org/.../jse_09_2_batten.pdf Not this time certainly.

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Actually, you're right about Jastrow, I have to admit. I never dealt with that one in my first post and seem to have subsequently forgotten about him. Okay, you have one.

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I repeat my response from our previous conversation, which you ignored;Sandage did not convert to Christianity because of the Big Bang. He did convert, that's true, but only late in life, whereas he had been working on the Big bang all his professional life. Further, Sandage was very much of the opinion that science and religion were complementary but separate. I think it unlikely that he would have agreed with your position in this thread. He doubtless thought that the Big Bang was compatible with Christianity, but I doubt very much that he would have considered it to actually support Christianity. Here are some more quotes from Sandage;

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In the case of scientific cosmology, the most one could say is that astronomers may have found the first effect, but not necessarily thereby the first cause sought by Anselm and Aquinas

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Knowledge of the creation is not knowledge of the creator,

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The answer to the question, "why", which I suppose down deep I was searching for in science, I realized itself had no answer in science. I forced myself to the statement that you’re asking the wrong questions or demanding too much for a proof. Why don’t you just begin to believe and see what happens?

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William A Durbin writes of Sandage's conversion;

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Again, this step was not necessitated by any implications of big bang cosmology or, more broadly, by the experience of beauty and truth in science.

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You can read Durbin's whole article Negotiating the Boundaries of Science and Religion II: The Conversion of Allan Sandage. It goes into Sandage's beliefs about religion and science and his conversion at some length. Having read it, I'm not seeing what you claimed; Sandage's religious conversion does not seem to have sprung from the Big Bang.

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So as far as I can see , we have one scientist whose views on God was changed by the Big Bang. So when you said; what you meant was "It's pretty hard to argue with... one guy." And when you said; you actually just meant Jastrow. And when you said; you meant Jastrow. Just Jastrow. And even he remained an agnostic.Nice. Nice examples.

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"I'm a committed reductionist. I think that the whole is equal to the sum of the parts. But I also know that there is no way within my scientific discipline of finding out whether there is a larger purpose or design in the universe. So I remain an agnostic, and not an atheist. To profess a disbelief in the existence of design or of the deity is essentially, in itself, a theological statement which a scientist cannot make on the structure or on the strength of his own discipline. He can only make it as a personal belief."

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Robert Jastrow, on Think Tank, September 9, 1995Mutate and Survive

Indeed. designtheorist is also yet to expand upon this claim; Searching EvC for the phrase "no religious person can be a scientist" gets you just this thread. Googling gets us three hits; one is this thread and the other two are Christians claiming that atheists claim this. I guess we must claim it in secret.Mutate and Survive

The Sandage bit I just copied over from the previous thread, with a little extra comment. With Eddington, I didn't include much backing at the time, partly because I was in a rush that morning and partly because I just thought that it was pretty well known that Eddington was a Quaker. I'd say that it's an appeal to authority. Albeit a somewhat controversial authority in the shape of an ID advocate.I'm sure that it's an accurate portrayal of Tipler's views, but so what? As Jastrow and Sandage pointed out, the existence or non-existence of God cannot be known either way by reference to physics or cosmology. Thus, the scientific qualifications of physicists and cosmologists are not relevant to theological claims. this leaves their claims no more valuable than claims made by you or I. The only reason to throe out such quotes is to hope that readers are impressed with the letters afters these guy's names.Mutate and Survive

Well I can't speak for jar, but I really don't think that he is saying that. In fact I can recall numerous examples of jar - who is a Christian by the way - citing examples of religious scientists in attempts to make the point that there can be religious scientists. As a matter of fact, that is something of a favourite point of jar's.Can you name anyone who claims that the religious can't be scientists? Anyone at all? If not, it seems that your example was poorly chosen and your characterisation of others' motivations were somewhat off target.Mutate and Survive

Two scientists. You have named two. Does two count as many? No, it's still an appeal to authority.The existence or non-existence of God cannot be proved (in a strict logical sense) by reference to physics or cosmology. This leaves the supposed authority of null and void in the case of theological claims.You are making an essentially theological claim. That makes any appeal to scientists' opinions (especially on the basis of their eminence as scientists) irrelevant.Citing a relevant authority might serve as some mitigation against charges of appeal to authority. Citing an irrelevant authority will not serve. Given that both Sandage and Jastrow are of the opinion that science cannot provide absolute proof of God, I would suggest that their claims are not relevant.Therefore you are making an appeal to authority.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

Yes, they're correct. He was a lifelong Quaker, honestly. Read the wiki quote again;

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Eddington, a Quaker pacifist, struggled to keep wartime bitterness out of astronomy.

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I can't really be bothered to trawl the net for a more explicit statement of Eddington's religiously inspired pacifism than this, but again, I assure you, he was a Quaker during WWI and famously so.As for Alan Sandage, you are telling me nothing new here. The article that I cited for you quote clearly specifies that Sandage viewed his conversion as a personal decision that he made regardless of logic, not as a direct result of the Big Bang, as you originally stated. That he made contradictory quotes only serves to underline the fallacy of your appeal to authority; Sandage contradicts himself, thus rendering him completely valueless as an authority. Damn right it's not true. I never said any such thing. Perhaps you should stop trying to read peoples' minds; you're not very good at it.I said that Jastrow was the only scientist you have named who can unequivocally be said to have changed his views on God because of the Big Bang. Since you have also named a rather flaky ID advocate as well. Your total stands at two. There may be more, but you have not named them. So far, your definition of "many" is, at the most generous possible assessment, two or three. That is not very many. No, I completely disagree. The Sandage example is also a poor choice since his position on the matter was far more nuanced than your original claim implied. Again, read Negotiating the Boundaries of Science and Religion II: The Conversion of Allan Sandage. It makes it quite clear that Sandage's conversion was a personal decision, not something demanded by the science.Further, you have utterly failed to address the underlying fallaciousness of the argument itself; you continue to appeal to a false authority. You could pull out quotes from a thousand scientists and it wouldn't matter a toss. You would just be committing the same dreary fallacy of appeal to authority.Pretty ironic for a thread where you presume to lecture everyone on fallacies.Mutate and Survive

Fine, have it from Sandage then;

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The answer to the question, why, which I suppose down deep I was searching for in science, I realized itself had no answer in science. I forced myself to the statement that you’re asking the wrong questions or demanding too much for a proof. Why don’t you just begin to believe and see what happens?

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Knowledge of the creation is not knowledge of the creator,

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astronomers may have found the first effect, but not necessarily thereby the first cause sought by Anselm and Aquinas

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For me the rationale [for believing first before all the evidence is in] is similar to the geometric postulates of Euclid. The mathematician never asks for the reality of these postulates. He begins with them. He accepts the postulates and sees what follows from that

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As far as I can tell these quotes are in direct contradiction to the quote you cite. It seems to me that it was Sandage whose thinking on this issue was muddled.At any rate, this is quite clearly a far more ambiguous situation than you initially suggested, thus making your simplistic citation of Sandage as a Big Bang convert an appeal to a dubious authority. I was only talking about those who clearly contradict themselves. {Although in my experience that's all of them...} But in point of fact, yes, such conversion anecdotes are wholly worthless as evidence for the existence of gods. They are a classic appeal to authority. These believers no more have evidence for gods than you or Sandage do. That makes their stories logically invalid and leaves anyone citing them guilty of an argument form authority.You have failed to deal with the underlying flaw in your argument; you are guilty of a classic fallacy. Until you address that, it doesn't matter how many Christian scientists you can name.By the way, I suppose it's too much to ask that you either back up or withdraw the accusations you made regarding "scientific" and "unscientific" minds and the imagined lack of religious scientists?Mutate and Survive

This sounds rather more like Sandage being influenced by the lack of a Big Crunch, rather than the existence of a Big Bang I will acknowledge that there does seem to have been some influence upon Sandage's conversion here, so I suppose that you are actually not too far off.I still think that your use of this quote is an appeal to an inappropriate authority though. This kind of comment by Sandage is in direct contradiction to your general argument, especially this one; This is in direct contradiction to the argument for which you were attempting to use Sandage as backing. Whatever effect Sandage might have been influenced by the Big Bang or other cosmology, he clearly disagrees with you about the idea that cosmology actively supports a designer. That makes your use of his quotations a bit of a bait and switch trick on your part; Sandage certainly thought that the universe was compatible with a designer - but no-one has really disagreed with you about that. In fact it has already been pointed out to you that it is impossible to even conceive of a universe that is not compatible with creation by an omnipotent supernatural being. You certainly failed to provide any examples when challenged to do so.The part of your argument that actually proved controversial, the only bit that anyone really disagreed with you about, was that we could find support for a designer from cosmology, and there, Sandage provides you with far less support. I fail to see how an individual who said "Knowledge of the creation is not knowledge of the creator," or "astronomers may have found the first effect, but not necessarily thereby the first cause sought by Anselm and Aquinas" can be used to support your more extreme claim. It appears instead to contradict it. That leaves you with no valid reason to cite Sandage, save to impress us all with his credentials, thus an illegitimate appeal to an inappropriate authority.You also appear to have forgotten this item, which PaulK introduced; It is obvious that no such consensus exists amongst legitimate experts (in this case physicists) that Big Bang cosmology supports design. That you can cite a handful of physicists that do think think this in no way legitimises the use of their authority in such an argument. You haven't demonstrated that this kind of thinking is anything other than a fringe element. One can always point to a handful of eccentrics, but that does not make their authority legitimate. Because it's not relevant? Because it doesn't matter how personal difficult Sandage's conversion experience was? But equally it underlines how Sandage's position is different to yours. He admits that belief requires a leap of faith, akin to pascal's Wager. Your position, that cosmology actively supports a designer goes further. Sure. Perhaps you would like to explain how quoting a tiny smattering of scientists in support of religious claims can be anything other than an appeal to authority. It seems a rather blatant example to me, especially as scientists in general are rather well known to be less religious than the general populace. Or maybe you would like to explain how "It must be {x} because otherwise is inconceivable." is something other than an appeal to ignorance?Mutate and Survive

Hi kbertsche, No, he is using the quotes to back up his argument that Big Bang cosmology supports a designer. He has made this clear repeatedly. I expect that Jesus-is-Lord is phase two of his position, but he has not argued for this directly as of yet. However, I still believe that he is employing the fallacy of appeal to authority, as I have outlined in my posts to him. Depending on what you mean by "eradicated", you may be going a little further than Dawkins does in that quote. Again, I think you are overstating Dawkins' position there. Now this, both Professor Dawkins and I agree on. The problem is that the issue is far more complicated than this.I believe that science and religion are ultimately incompatible, but that does not mean that there can be no religious scientists or that the science done by theists must be bad, or anything of the kind. It simply means that to do good science, one must remove one's theist hat and put on one's scientist hat, because you can't do both at the same time; in this way science and religion are fundamentally incompatible.If you want to discuss this further, start a thread. It is too nuanced an issue to deal with here. And if I or anyone else here had ever argued in the manner that you describe, then designtheorist would not be committing a fallacy. But the reality is that you are mischaracterising my argument. I have not argued in the way that you describe, nor has anyone else that I've noticed. No. They show that belief in God and the practise of science are compatible insofar as they can exist within the same person. They do not show that God himself is compatible with science; I do not believe that an actual omnipotent magical being can be described as compatible with a system that must ignore magic. Well, as it happens, a nice person called "kbertsche" has linked to a survey that backs up my position. Check it out! In Message 196 this "kbertsche" cites two studies that put atheism at around the halfway point amongst scientists; notably higher than in the general population, just as I said. Thank you "kbertsche", whoever you are!Mutate and Survive

No. I think you are profoundly misunderstanding the science here. No you aren't, as has already been explained to you multiple times. The "colliding branes" hypothesis, for example, describes a scenario where by multiple universes can come into being without ever invoking any "Big Bounce".Of course Sandage died a few years back. His inability to keep up with the state of the art is yet another reason why citing him as an authority is a fallacy on your part. No, but he is not an expert on universe designers. No-one is, nor could anyone ever be. That, in part, is what makes your argument fallacious; not that you cite expert physicists, but that you cite them in support of a position that goes far beyond physics. Citing anyone, anyone at all, in support of your argument is innately fallacious, since no-one can know anything about this designer. But you go significantly further than Sandage does here. Sandage only points to a supernatural cause. You on the other hand find it "inconceivable" that the "Big Banger" is anything other than a personal entity. Here your position substantially differs from that proposed by Sandage, who seems to think that this latter position, that of a personal force behind the Big Bang, requires a leap of faith. But you have claimed to be able to know about the qualities of the creator and I think that leaves you in a different place to Sandage.Don't get me wrong, I accept that yours and Sandage's positions are perhaps closer than I originally thought, but I still don't think that you have demonstrated that he would have been in agreement with your position. Compatible yes. Supportive? I still think that you're on shaky ground there. And yet curiously, the only entity that you mention as candidate for this honour is the Abrahamic monotheistic deity. Your intentions here are pretty clear. Every word of that is nonsense. If Hawking believes this, he must be an utter moron, since he still professes to be an atheist, thus casting aside what you claim he believes.Quoting atheists in support of pro-theist arguments is not good practise. It's just too blatantly an example of quote mining. I mean, just think about it; Hawking is an atheist. Whatever you can quote him as saying, there's clearly more to his beliefs than you mention, or he would be a theist, wouldn't he?Or maybe you feel that you know what Hawking thinks better than he does. Not content with putting words in the mouths of dead men, you are now moving on to misrepresent the living, is that it? And you have conspicuously failed to do this, citing Hawking (who diagrees with you), Tipler (who's as mad as a basket of badgers), Davies (who also disagrees with you) and Sandage (who only comes close to agreeing with you). You have in fact showed a diversity of opinion at best and you have only cited a tiny handful of names. You are not even come close to showing that anything approaching a reasonable consensus exists on this issue. You have not demonstrated that the position you take is anything other than a fringe one amongst physicists. Worst of all, you are citing the support of physicists in a matter that goes well behind their expertise, thus leaving you back at square one, making a bad argument from an inappropriate authority.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

I love the way that the "smacks of..." quote has gone from Hawking describing someone else's opinion, to Hawking's own opinion and now it has actually become a fact!Is there a Latin name for that DT? Would you prefer that he employed an argument from ignorance, as you do in the same circumstances? Or do you only disapprove of logical fallacies when other people commit them?Mutate and Survive