quote:
I am intrigued by one of the statements in your previous post, the one where you said, "We gladly welcome all viewpoints here, but you had better be able to back them up with something other than personal beliefs."
so, are you saying that any assertions that I make here must be confirmed by physical evidence to be considered valid?
For theories pertaining to the natural world, yes. If you want to make a scientific argument you must use objective evidence. That is, observations that can be repeated by everyone regardless of world view. Just for an example, most of us can agree on when the Empire State building was made and how tall it is. Not everyone can agree if it is a beautiful building or not.
Just going by your username, but the Intelligent Design movement hasn't quite figured this out yet (objective vs subjective evidence in science). They use the subjective statement "It looks designed." Or in Behe's case "I don't see how that could have evolved step by step." These are subjective statement lacking any and all objective evidence. These are personal beliefs.
However, philisophical positions are open to personal interpretation. "What is the meaning of life?" does not need objective evidence for support, personal beliefs will do just fine. But if you want to say something about the physical world, a world accessible to all of us through our 5 senses, then you must be objective.
Hope this clears things up.