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Author
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Topic: The Interpretation of Evidence Colored by "GodSenseless" worldview
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1426 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: 03-14-2004
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Re: Rational?
perhaps you are not being clear in what you are saying if I have misinterpreted so badly.
willowtree writes: my arguments effectively highlight the error of those who assert science and its methodologies to be the only avenue to determine truth. so far this is just a claim. what error?
we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand
Rebel AAmerican .Zen [Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}
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paisano
Member (Idle past 6444 days) Posts: 459 From: USA Joined: 05-07-2004
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Message 32 of 74 (151504)
10-21-2004 12:15 AM
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Reply to: Message 27 by Loudmouth
10-20-2004 3:29 PM
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Re: Rational?
That there is no God, and therefore all natural phenomena are testable through methodological naturalism and Rational Inquiry. Saying "God exists" AND "God Did It" throws in an untestable variable that weakens the strength of any conclusion. I think you're affirming the consequent here. A better claim would be that phenomena which cannot be tested through natural means are not properly the subject of scientific inquiry. Asserting the existence of a deity per se, is not properly a scientific issue. Arguments pro or con then have to be of a logical , metaphysical, or ontological nature. YEC makes claims that are falsifiable through naturalistic observations. Therefore, someone who holds to YEC does so in contradction to the physical evidence. I think this is also affirming the consequent. YEC is a much more restrictive claim than the existence of a deity per se. It is rooted in another claim, Biblical inerrancy, to which there are theological as well as scientifc counterarguments.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 27 by Loudmouth, posted 10-20-2004 3:29 PM | | Loudmouth has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 33 by Loudmouth, posted 10-21-2004 12:34 PM | | paisano has replied |
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Loudmouth
Inactive Member
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Message 33 of 74 (151635)
10-21-2004 12:34 PM
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Reply to: Message 32 by paisano
10-21-2004 12:15 AM
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Re: Rational?
quote:
A better claim would be that phenomena which cannot be tested through natural means are not properly the subject of scientific inquiry.
This is not what YEC's claim. They claim that spiritual revelation is just as important as testing natural mechanisms. In fact, they go as far as saying that spiritual revelation trumps scientific inquiry.
quote:
YEC makes claims that are falsifiable through naturalistic observations. Therefore, someone who holds to YEC does so in contradction to the physical evidence.
Actually, YEC's do not make this claim. They say that special creation is detectable through science BUT science can not falsify special creation. This is due to the influence of an all powerful deity directly influencing the natural world, a deity who could make a world look old if that deity wanted too. Therefore, only positive evidence counts while falsifying evidence is caused by a deity. This is why I said that "God exists" AND "God Did It" weaken all conclusions. Once this position is taken no evidence can falsify a claim, therefore weakening every conclusion that is drawn from evidence.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 32 by paisano, posted 10-21-2004 12:15 AM | | paisano has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 41 by paisano, posted 10-22-2004 12:03 AM | | Loudmouth has not replied |
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Cold Foreign Object 
Suspended Member (Idle past 3069 days) Posts: 3417 Joined: 11-21-2003
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Message 34 of 74 (151768)
10-21-2004 8:01 PM
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Reply to: Message 31 by RAZD
10-20-2004 11:37 PM
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Re: Rational?
You believe scientific methodologies are the ONLY avenue to determine truth. This is error. This is narrow minded fascist repressive medieval religion, known today as scientism, the same business on the other side of the street, and you are a rank and file brainwashed member.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 31 by RAZD, posted 10-20-2004 11:37 PM | | RAZD has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 35 by crashfrog, posted 10-21-2004 8:08 PM | | Cold Foreign Object has replied | | | Message 36 by coffee_addict, posted 10-21-2004 8:15 PM | | Cold Foreign Object has replied | | | Message 40 by RAZD, posted 10-21-2004 9:08 PM | | Cold Foreign Object has not replied | | | Message 42 by Loudmouth, posted 10-22-2004 2:29 PM | | Cold Foreign Object has replied | | | Message 44 by RAZD, posted 10-22-2004 8:49 PM | | Cold Foreign Object has not replied | | | Message 46 by jar, posted 10-22-2004 9:15 PM | | Cold Foreign Object has replied | | | Message 61 by RAZD, posted 10-28-2004 8:06 PM | | Cold Foreign Object has not replied |
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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1488 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: 03-20-2003
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You believe scientific methodologies are the ONLY avenue to determine truth. What other methods are there that are distinguishable from making shit up? Show me the success of any methodology other than verifiable investigation of the natural world. I mean, I'm sitting in an apartment filled with the technological fruit of science, which dominates our world now, and science is really only about 3-400 years old. On the other hand, there was a time when religious methodology held sway in the West - that time period is called "The Dark Ages," and lasted a thousand years. Why do you think that might be? Why do you think that they did not have, for instance, telephones and airplanes in the Dark Ages, if the methodology they used was just as good as science? A thousand years of darkness and ignorance is enough, don't you think? I guess not. This message has been edited by crashfrog, 10-21-2004 07:08 PM
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coffee_addict
Member (Idle past 498 days) Posts: 3645 From: Indianapolis, IN Joined: 03-29-2004
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Re: Rational?
WillowTree writes: You believe scientific methodologies are the ONLY avenue to determine truth. This is error. This is narrow minded fascist repressive medieval religion, known today as scientism, the same business on the other side of the street, and you are a rank and file brainwashed member.
A gun is located at the bottom of a hill that is inclined at an angle 12 with respect to the horizontal. If the gun is fired with an initial speed 370 meter per second at an angle 16 with respect to the horizontal, how far up the slope of the hill will the bullet hit the ground? I'd like to see you use your faith or whatever that you think is a better than science to figure out how to solve the problem. This message has been edited by Lam, 10-21-2004 07:16 PM
He's not dead. He's electroencephalographically challenged.
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AdminNosy
Administrator Posts: 4754 From: Vancouver, BC, Canada Joined: 11-11-2003
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Different kinds of truth???
At some point in this discussion everyone was careful to separate "truth" about the natural world from other kinds of truth. I think that has been lost sight of. Could you all clarify just what you are talking about??
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coffee_addict
Member (Idle past 498 days) Posts: 3645 From: Indianapolis, IN Joined: 03-29-2004
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Message 38 of 74 (151784)
10-21-2004 8:26 PM
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Reply to: Message 37 by AdminNosy
10-21-2004 8:22 PM
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Re: Different kinds of truth???
AN writes: At some point in this discussion everyone was careful to separate "truth" about the natural world from other kinds of truth.
Now really, besides the truth about the natural world, what other truth are there except for the crackpot ideas that religious zealots come up with every once in a while?
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 37 by AdminNosy, posted 10-21-2004 8:22 PM | | AdminNosy has replied |
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AdminNosy
Administrator Posts: 4754 From: Vancouver, BC, Canada Joined: 11-11-2003
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Crack pot ideas
That they are crack pot is your view. That they are not ammenable to scientific analysis (at present) may still be the case. I'd like to see the two of you separate what things you do think and do not think are of the "natural world" Willowtree, you were asked at the beginning of this thread and have been since asked to show how a different result could be achieved with your worldview. You don't seem to be about to do that. In which case this is a waste of time.
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1426 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: 03-14-2004
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Re: Rational?
pure ad hominem verbal abuse. this means you have no other argument left. you presumed an exclusion from evidence based on faith, and it was shown to be non-productive due to the number of other faiths that had none of the problems with evidence that you have. you have been refuted. you're options: (1) admit your error (2) deny your error and call other people bad names. hmmm. and we have not even begun to get into the question of what ideas of reality are about, how they can extend beyond the scientific and how those can be validated or cooroborated. on any other board I would look to see if your name was trolled (say a zero instead of the cap "O" - by someone pretending to be you) just to be sure this came from you instead of someone malicious. enjoy your world view.
we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand
Rebel AAmerican .Zen [Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}
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paisano
Member (Idle past 6444 days) Posts: 459 From: USA Joined: 05-07-2004
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Message 41 of 74 (151842)
10-22-2004 12:03 AM
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Reply to: Message 33 by Loudmouth
10-21-2004 12:34 PM
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Re: Rational?
This is why I said that "God exists" AND "God Did It" weaken all conclusions. Granted, in the limited sense if such statements are misused as an excuse for lack of corroborating evidence, or abundance of refuting evidence. Per se, that's another matter. The question of the details is then still unresolved.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 33 by Loudmouth, posted 10-21-2004 12:34 PM | | Loudmouth has not replied |
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Loudmouth
Inactive Member
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Re: Rational?
quote:
You believe scientific methodologies are the ONLY avenue to determine truth.
This is error.
—Willowtree in reply to RAZD
I do not know whether or not RAZD believes that science is the only route to find the larger truth of life, but I agree with you Willow. We all need philosophy or theology to answer those bigger questions about life and existence. However, the more narrowly defined "truth" of how the natural world works and has worked is best answered by science and not religion. Until the last 250 years religion had free reign over scientific truth and it went nowhere. It wasn't until religious bias was removed from science that real discoveries were made. It would seem that removal of godsense actually enabled man to better understand the natural world.
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1426 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: 03-14-2004
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Message 43 of 74 (152036)
10-22-2004 4:10 PM
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Reply to: Message 42 by Loudmouth
10-22-2004 2:29 PM
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and the answer is ... 42?
Loudmouth writes: I do not know whether or not RAZD believes that science is the only route to find the larger truth of life life, the universe, and everything? For any search for truth beyond the realms of science the rules of logic must still apply or we are like blind people in a cave throwing dead fish at a wall and seeing if one sticks, to accept one idea as more valid than another. The question is what can one use to deduce those greater truths, what differentiates truth from fiction? Certainly it cannot be any one single source, in fact the more sources point in one direction the more likely the truth is in that direction. But equally certainly it cannot just be a popular opinion, as that is liable to change, and 99% of the population can still be wrong. This is where I come to my use of the "nonsense quotient" - the measure of what has to be "nonsense" for a {supposed truth} to be valid. Let us start with ideas, and what they are, how they confine reality ... from an essay of mine:
The Philosophy of Pragmatism:
The mind is such that it deals only with ideas. It is not possible for the mind to relate to anything other than ideas. Therefore it is not correct to think that the mind actually can ponder reality. All that the mind can ponder is its ideas about reality. (Whether or not that is the way reality actually is, is a metaphysical issue.) Therefore, whether or not something is true is not a matter of how closely it corresponds to the absolute truth, but of how consistent it is with our experience.
Gary Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, An Overview of the New Physics The mind can only deal with ideas. For it to deal with an idea it must first either (a) be presented with the idea from an outside source, (b) deduce the idea from observation of the (individual's) perceived reality, or (c) combine previous ideas (including the ideas of observations) into a new idea.
(a) Is the essence of education.
(b) Is the essence of rational thought.
(c) Is the essence of creating theories. For any of these ideas to be perceived by an individual as true, they must be consistent with the experiences of that individual. But each experience is recalled as an idea of what occurred, so the experiences of an individual are the all the previous ideas of that individual. The individual combines all previous ideas into a reality map against which new ideas are tested. Where there is a conflict between two ideas, then either one or the other or both must be incorrect (or incomplete) and it is time for a new idea. The new idea can either be a test to see which old idea is correct (or more complete), or it can be a new way of structuring the old ideas so that the conflict is resolved. Because it is de facto impossible for the {experiences / ideas} of one person to match the {experiences / ideas} of another person, it follows that perceived truth for one person is necessarily different from perceived truth for another person. Where there is a conflict between two perceived truths, then either one or the other or both must be incorrect (or incomplete) and it is time for a new idea. The new idea can either be a test to see which perceived truth is correct (or more complete), or it can be a new way of structuring the old ideas so that the conflict is resolved. Each person will evaluate new ideas according to their accumulated (world view) ideas and either accept them as valid or reject them as nonsense. Those that need to reject more ideas as nonsense than others means that they are having more trouble fitting the available information into their world view. Perhaps this will add to the debate rather than stimulate name-calling. Enjoy. This message has been edited by RAZD, 10-22-2004 03:11 PM
we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand
Rebel AAmerican .Zen [Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 42 by Loudmouth, posted 10-22-2004 2:29 PM | | Loudmouth has not replied |
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1426 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: 03-14-2004
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Re: Rational?
now reply to message #43 http:// EvC Forum: The Interpretation of Evidence Colored by "GodSenseless" worldview try without the name calling? as you accuse others of doing?
we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand
Rebel AAmerican .Zen [Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}
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wj
Inactive Member
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Message 45 of 74 (152133)
10-22-2004 9:00 PM
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Reply to: Message 43 by RAZD
10-22-2004 4:10 PM
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Re: and the answer is ... 42?
razd writes: Each person will evaluate new ideas according to their accumulated (world view) ideas and either accept them as valid or reject them as nonsense.
Unfortunately this sounds like postmodernism. The best way to evaluate an idea is to test it against reality, not to compare it with one's worldview. This is why observation and experimenation are central to the scientific method. Ideas which can be independently observed in the real world or experimented upon by persons of different worldviews with the same outcome have value which is superior to an individual's worldview.
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 43 by RAZD, posted 10-22-2004 4:10 PM | | RAZD has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 47 by RAZD, posted 10-22-2004 10:13 PM | | wj has not replied |
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