Just the Facts Ma'am

I decided to bring up the topic of what constitutes 'factual' since it seems there is a vast disconnect between various posters at this site as to what constitutes such. In a world where,thanks to the internet,information is readily available the need to set up critical thinking skills to weed out false and misleading from verifiable and 'factual' is greater than ever.
So I propose that this topic will be a sounding board to establish how we can make better decisions on how to clarify the enormous influx of information and to see if we can clarify the ways in which we all make errors in judgement that are part and parcel of being human.I know that it is necessary to have people with even expertise be able to show both the strengths of their arguements but also the weaknesses.
Since I am one who has a limited educational background but loves to read up on the arguements of what constitutes good evidence I will start by making the obvious contribution of experience that biases our outlook on how we filter information. I think that it is always necessary to consider knowledge in our possesion as part of a flexible foundation that is capable of adjusting to new information even if it shakes our concept of what we think is real.
So it is important to realize that even though knowledge itself as gathered by the cumultive effort of humans over time is as trustworthy as we can get and constitutes a good approximation on what is outside our skull it behooves us to understand what is known about this brain,whereby we tease out the secrets of the world, and its limitations of perception.
So let us get this started by having people introduce the ways they are aware of how we all make errors and perhaps begin to build a list that can be used to aid all of us in clarifying the "real" world.

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'Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.'
(Daniel Patrick Moynihan)

Good Topic, Sidelined! In the matter of issues such as Noahs Ark, concrete evidence is important. Also weave together commentaries that talk about the event. For me, the story is inerrent in meaning yet inconclusive as to a literal event. Lets define our terms,then. Crossing over into the Faith realm, I would argue that Faith stands as testable in debate, but that an individuals faith need not be dismissed due to lack of evidence. If someone believes in Pink Unicorns, allow them to explain why. I believe in the Bible. I always back up my faith with explanations. I do not send people off to other websites to verify my beliefs. (Well, mostly not)I say that the Bible be allowed as the evidence to back up believers claims, but that other websites be ruled inadmissable. Lets take a stand on the book that we believe in!([This message has been edited by Phatboy, 02-21-2004]

Phatboy,I think your post is a prime example of the muddle-headed philosophizing that infuriates most of the evolutionists here. The reason Sidelined started this thread was to discuss the basis we have for our beliefs, and to find common ground among the various metaphysical territories that we all claim.No one here thinks you shouldn't believe whatever you want. However, the factual basis of your belief in the Bible is nonexistent, and you would admit this if you had any honesty about facts vs. fantasy. It's not like you're alone: this website currently hosts debates between a former scientist now attempting to apply scientific method to detecting demons and those who feel he is an utter crackpot. We all have our superstitions, but some of us realize they are only figments of our overactive imaginations. There are others among us who feel there is indeed a rational basis for their bizarre beliefs. This basis should be easy to demonstrate if it were true, but it hasn't been.We don't want you to abandon your faith, what we want you to do is understand what facts are, and what you need to realize if you are to be considered a rational human being and not a fruitcake.Imagine you were present at a brutal attack in which your closest friend was murdered. At the trial, the defendant's family and friends line up to testify that the person you saw murder your loved one couldn't conceivably have been responsible for such an act. One after the other, they tell the court what a harmless, selfless, and upstanding person the defendant is. As the witness to his alleged crime, you're portrayed as a delusional and dangerous person. This is exactly the way we evolutionists feel when we try to assert the factual basis of species evolution in the face of emotional arguments by creationists.I don't really care what you feel your Bible says about the development of life on Earth. I don't care if you think the Noah's Ark myth was literally true. I don't care if you think evolution is an affront to your personal philosophy. You need to understand the rational basis of empirical evidential inquiry and to argue with the facts that support evolutionary theory.

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The dark nursery of evolution is very dark indeed.
Brad McFall

For anything to become fact it must be beyond reasonable doubt. I believe the effiel tower exists, I've never been there, in fact have no first hand account, but its not a subject that would be debated so I can safely say its fact. I currently see weight of evidence saying the earth is old, Noahs flood was myth or regional, that evolution is the current best theory of where we came from, but in all these cases there are massive debates raging, and many things that can still be learnt and tested, so its hard to declare any of them fact.
There are grey areas, for example the global flood story. Its an impossible story in the literal, often quoted version, and so many things prove that, but against this evidence and science many people still fight for it in that form. Most end up saying "god did it" as a form of "I don't know", but at what point do you have to say its a fact that it didn't happen that way? Do you use the court room idea that if the evidence for and against was before a jury which would be the majority decision?

Before we get into any details why don't we try to figure out just what a 'fact' is?The existance of the Eifel tower isn't a bad starting point. Why do you think it is a fact?You seem to say that as long as there is no controversy or disagreement then that is good enough for you. However, for almost anything there are bound to be a few people (perhaps in mental institutions) or don't accept almost anything. How much consensus makes something a fact for you?Is that the only thing? I presume that if you went to Paris and saw it that would be good enough.If someone who you trusted a great deal went as said they saw it even if many, many others said it wasn't there would that be enough?How about many trusted people (say a hundred) say it exists but 10,000 people sign a petition saying it doesn't? What then?

I am beginning to think that Uncertainty is an emergent property of life.

In the case of the effiel tower there is no real debate to its existance, and with no reason to believe otherwise its taken as fact. We also know that if there was disagreement then you could travel to paris and touch it yourself, thereby proving it is a fact despite what claims are made.
If for example a family member travelled and saw the effiel tower, and he says its really there. Then other people start telling you its not, then you will be left with doubt no matter which way you turn, until you can get that proof for yourself. As soon as there is reasonable doubt (people in mental institutions are not a valid source of anything) then the subject is not fact.
So it either has to be proven to the individual or not a source of arguement before it could be considered a fact.
And yes I quite agree that there is very little that can therefore be called a fact, and even those things that we believe are proven can still be argued about.

Ok, so how much time does one spend checking "facts" in their life? There is a great deal of things that someone or another (not in a mental institution) may not agree about. How do I pick which ones to check "for myself" and which ones don't I?Am I left not knowing something that I haven't checked out myself just because someone, somewhere who may or may not know what they are talking about says one thing and some other person somewhere else says something different?What if this is an important issue but I can't do the real checking myself?You seem to think that we know very little since there are so few facts. How do you make an economic decision, a voting decision or anything for that matter?

Because you base your decisions on the evidence at hand on which you come to logical conclusions about. Whether it is a hard fact doesn't matter, you go with the best information at hand and make informed decisions.How much time does a person spend checking facts? As long as you live. Its an ongoing thing, we all learn, we all gain knowledge and use that knowledge to shape our lives. There should never be a point where we stop learning. I haven't been to the effiel tower, but I do intend to in the near future, at which point I can add that to the things that I have proved to myself.

I believe the Eifel tower is a good example of until you have the personal experience that Clark Briswald did, you could be swayed or at least confused.Some things require a leep of faith instead of factual proof. If I have a bad cough, I can buy a bottle of Formula 44 and administer the medication to myself. I don't have the ability to empirically prove that the medicine in my bottle will help me or kill me because it is poison. But the lable says that it is approved by the US government testing labs so I place faith in their credibility and take the medicine. If I survive the medication, I now have tangible proof that the medicine does what it states it will do. It took faith to read the lable and believe it enough to try it.

Mr. "Fact not Fiction" Hambre: Remember that I said that I am not a Biblical Literalist. I am a Believer in the Inerrency of the message that God wishes to convey through the stories and parables in the book. I do not deny the facts concerning scientific evidence. As to the reliability and accuracy of the event told in the Gospels about God becoming man through a virgin birth and a planned death, burial and resurrection, I DO Believe that this event happened. My evidence is the tens of thousands of changed lives and the uncanny Spirit that lives in these blessed people. My proof can be questioned and examined. It can even be denied, but it cannot be dismissed as a mere mental preconception. One cannot deny changed lives! Even if the story of Christ was a myth, the story has accomplished a miracle on Earth!

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Even if the story of Christ was a myth, the story has accomplished a miracle on Earth!

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With this statement you expose the invalidity of your argument that tens of thousands of changed lives consititute evidence for the existence or divinity of Jesus, Mohammad, Zeus, Buddha, Vishnu or any other character. Is Raelianism based on fact because some peoples' lives have been changed by it? How many life-altered believers does it take to turn a particular theology into a fact?Many believers in something may simply mean that many people are mistaken.

Perhaps, but how can you so stubbornly stick to your "worship" of human wisdom as the highest source of truth?

I think this topic is deviating too fast. To me it seemed like the original intent was to make some sort of list that would constitute what a "fact" was. This way if something is presented as evidence, the list can be used to see if the "evidence" is factual (true) or not.so instead of focusing on specifically the Eiffel tower, and how we could convince ourselves if it actually existed (it's existence was a fact), lets talk about what we would have to satisfy to show that it was a fact.so one condition that readily comes to mind is that it has to be plausible... or at the very lest non-contradictory to an already established fact... i.e. you can't have mutually exclusive facts.something else that has been hinted on... a fact has to be verifiable. when talking about the Eiffel tower, it was suggested that someone could just go to Paris to establish weather it factually exists or not. This may be impractical at times, so at the very least the option should have to be there that someone can go to Paris to see if it's there.

Phatboy,Again, you personify the believer who wants to have his cake and eat it too. The Bible is true, you say, but perhaps not literally factual. This is just a silly semantic game. The basis for your belief is wishful thinking, but you claim that lots of wishful thinking from people across the globe constitutes evidence of the factual basis of the Bible.We do hold human wisdom above divine wisdom in guiding our understanding of natural phenomena. Divine wisom has never given us any insight into earthly reality. If God hath made folly of the wisdom of men, the track record of the wisdom of men is pretty impressive in expanding our knowledge of the biosphere.Believers seem to envy the success of science, and try to appropriate its terminology without understanding it. The people who claim that God is a proven fact obviously define the term 'fact' to mean exactly the opposite of what it means in an objective sense. Religious belief is not something that yields to empirical evidential inquiry, and merely using the language of rationality doe not make the proposition rational.regards,
Esteban "Folly" Hambre