Nobel Prize vs Proof that the Death Penalty MUST kill innocents

Yes, because unlike all of my opponents in this thread, I apparently am the only real scientist and understand when tentativity ends and overt incredulity begins.What's more I am a philosopher who has studied, and at this point has explained at least once, how your very argument is anti-science and anti-knowledge, by requiring an a priori moral dictate to drive your rules of knowledge.Are you willing to risk your soul on the ToE, by saying it is a better model that creationism?Creos would say not.In light of your criticism of me, your criticism of them has now been diluted to PCKB.This message has been edited by holmes, 04-14-2005 10:01 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Yeah, see this is what I am talking about. I have an OP which explains my position and sets out a hypothetical, and yet I am yet again supposed to deal with a patent strawman of my position. Probably the husband. What does that have to do with the death penalty? No I am quiet uncomfortable with the level of doubt shown by people in this thread. The incredulity is so preposterous that I feel like I'm in the twilight zone.Oh wait, you think the system you just outlines has anything to do with what I am talking about? Actually read my posts and then respond. You'll find my posts plainly suggest that the above situation would not (or should not) come close to ending in a death penalty.Now play nice and actually work with me here. Is there ANY case, hypothetical or from reality, where you can say you definitively know a person has done something. At this point I'm even willing to go for noncrimes.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

No, this is not a flying guillotine or something.The purpose of a court is to find guilt or innocence regarding a crime and then assess proper sentences for the crime. As part of the sentencing phase the death penalty option need not even come into play if we set rules (neccessary requirements) regarding level of evidence such that it is a practical certainty that no innocents will be killed. I called them "myths" in the original thread where all this started, but one could easily point to the statement all pro DP advocates want to kill innocent people (that was a keen one), or what we are dealing with here: The claim that it is IMPOSSIBLE to come up with a system that employs the death penalty and NOT kill an innocent person.Its possible and that should be pretty obvious, unless we lose all sight of reason. I want you to think about your statement VERY CAREFULLY. In addition to tentativity, science also has exclusivity. The current argument against my position is not for the rules to be TIGHTER. If it were then we would not have to entertain every logical possibility no matter how ludicrous (that is crash's stated position and most certainly schraf and your suggested position).Indeed, tentativity itself can eventually be excluded as a practical tool with tighter rules for evidence, when we are discussing a body of evidence which can be shown to be exhaustive of all plausible evidence that can be had on a subject.One of the biggest catches would have to be an inclusion of the requirement that the suspect freely confesses and does not dispute the confession during trial or after, on top of the body of evidence.The absurd lengths that would be required for all of this to accidentally happen is not practical to entertain... and is a rejection of rational thought in deliberation. The absurd lengths that it would be required for all of this to be manufactured is equally impractical, and even if not a rejection of rational thought, than simply a strawman as one is talking about a plot by the victim (in which case it is not the system's failure) or it is a buyout and switch of the system to something else. If you do not see that "risk involved" and "taking life is a very large risk" is a moral supposition, especially when used to scale down epistemology, then there is nothing more for me to say. It is pretty obvious.But here's the analogy again...Levels of certainty must scale to the risk involved. The purposeful destruction of an immortal soul is a very large risk, and is completely irreversible.In any case it is also circular argument. Check it again. To call it a risk, or that one is risking a life is to imply (to presume) the conclusion that any system will have that risk. The death penalty does not risk life, life is taken. The question is does a system of rules which allows for the application of the death penalty (ie uses levels of knowledge to determine its ability to be used) actually result in a risk? Ughhhh... that is an awful analogy. But thankfully really gave me the first thing to smile about today. Yes we can, but then we don't logically have to. Indeed we can even point out it is not a "theory" in the sense of a scientific theory (despite repeated attempts to make that fallacious connection) and depending on the level of knowledge show that it is epistemologically true.If the person really is guilty, which we can determine by a set of rules so tight that it is not possible for there to be any reasonable or practical possibility the person is not guilty, then there simply is no risk.The question here is can humans devise rules of knowledge? Can epistemology exist?The one thing that has been shown is when moral imperatives, thus ethics, force people to craft epistemology for specific results, knowledge is pretty much out the window.I'm sticking to my guns.Maybe I ought to be turning the tables and putting it this way...Am I willing to risk rational judgement and argument (i.e. logic) in order to make sure I can say at least I didn't "risk" the life of a guy who says he killed people and people say he killed people and all well tested evidence says he killed people?I would say no.Would you? Yawn, yes we do, so you missed the point. Try again. Personally I am willing to accept the level of evidence that was collected and presented for both Dahmer and Gacy. They are pretty clear cut cases of non questionable attainment of evidence, and mountains of it. I can't remember if Gacy confessed now or not. But this goes to show I am not necessarily feeling a system requires a confession. There are instances where it is practically impossible for there to have been a setup, or the likelihood of new evidence from any arena.Indeed I am still waiting to hear what plausible kind of evidence could have appeared such that Dahmer would have been shown to be innocent. Citing "tentativity" in that case is simply mocking science.However, if requirements of undisputed confessions made people feel even safer, I'd be for that. And just for hypotheticals, though I think this is a little much, we can even make it where the person is actively asking for the death penalty.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

The nature of the "absurdities" which would be required have already been detailed, specifically to you. Carting this argument out again, means you have either forgotten, or you are intentionally lying.If you forgot, go back and look. If you are lying, please stop posting. Handwave? I'm sorry, I figured a discussion on how modern scientific methodology, including tentativity came to be, would have explained something to you.I'll have to remember that when you "handwave" at creos. This is a joke right? This is even worse than a person saying the ToE defies the 2nd law of thermodynamics. I thought you said you "read stuff"?Highest theshold practically possible? Given that you have both avoided direct questions and when the parallels are clearly pointed out you both duck and run, yes it has come to me.I love that buz gets kicked out for this kind of garbage and now its alright for everyone else.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

What a dull person you are. I wasn't citing "common knowledge", I was discussing what it is to "know" in every day life, as opposed to when we want to say we "know" something in science (which will have different standards).Its called the field of epistemology. Look it up somewhere. So possible moral actions, drive epistemological rules? Then you agree with creos that Evolution is the same as Creationism? Yes, yes I could. And I really ought to. I will try. Now what you can do is actually answer my direct questions and not give me glib questions or refusals to answer in return. Is that a deal? I am not calling you names. I am giving you a direct comparison of what you are doing to a group you criticize when they make the same argument.Should morals drive rules of knowledge? There are those that pretend they know something. You are one of them. I have explained where tentativity comes from and how it was used. As far as solipsism is concerned you don't even seem to be using it correctly.What's great is you don't even bother to rebut my historical statements, you just restate your own assertions. If you are really correct, why don't you tell me how tentativity came about and where concepts of occam's razor and denial of Hume's skepticism fit into science, and show that I am incorrect. The last failed attempt of someone that does not know. I already gave you one name, do you really need more? By the way, have you read Gould?There is a difference between admitting tentativity in science, where theories are always tentative, and pretending that you don't know anything.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I asked you to read my posts. I agree with that position 100%. I have said this on not just one occasion, including in this thread, and even gave the example of my own state's suspension of sentences to review the system (and I still don't think it's fixed)! Whew. Thank you. Stay tuned, I may actually start asking you more questions. I think you may find you are a bit more flexible that this. Not that it is necessary, but that there are other reasonable alternatives. Well what you really mean to say is that the frequency of it coming into play, without lots of cameras and such would not be very often.Having dirty cops is moot, given the rest of the necessary evidence.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Hot dog, two in a row! Yes, this is how systems could be devised. Indeed the point is to increase the level of evidence necessary that not only is guilt achieved beyond a reasonable doubt, but that there is no reasonably plausible avenue contrary evidence could come from in the future.That's why I had listed two pretty intensive hypotheticals, and the case of Dahmer which is pretty solid beyond a mega conspiracy which included Dahmer himself.They were cases showing that there is a level of evidence which reasonably eliminates any possibility of counterevidence being introduced. Well this is why I was so insulted by the "why don't you show us your system already" jibes. There are many different types of systems, and we could build in some redundancies. And of course I have always maintained an appeals process. It's somewhere in the Coffee House. I think Schiavo, or Terri is in the title.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

That is a plausible requirement for making sure that no one innocent ends up getting executed. And yes, that probably means many would not confess and so not become available for the death penalty. Because in some cases we would meet that condition. That is the practical difference. And yes some do confess. Some even request the death penalty. No not many.The point being, and it was the only point of this thread is that such a system could be devised and so eliminate the possibility that innocents would be killed. Because as you have just pointed out a guilty person, much less an innocent person would likely have the common sense not to confess, or challenge any forced confession along the way.Your huge mistake was trying to ride me as if I was saying that this is what should be made, instead of seeing it for what I said it was which was a challenge to show how a system COULD be made. The existence of a death penalty within a system does NOT INHERENTLY mean it will have to kill innocents.That is what I have shown, unless we want to dip into incredulity and hypocrisy. That is what it seems you are willing to stoop to.Could someone argue, hey that'll come up to less than 1 case every hundred years so let's chuck the option to save money on preserving equipment we don't use? Yeah, sure. But that is another debate.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This shows what you know. Perhaps you should practice some of that tentativity, and learn some more about rules of knowledge and knowing.Indeed go further and check out how tentativity works in science as opposed to metphysical in/credulity in daily life, driven by potential moral outcomes.Rules are formed based on the nature of the actor and the subject under study and arbitrary requirements to achieve a level of certainty the actor desires.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This is how I identify when people can't see past their own pet causes. Find where I said that everyone should agree with the death penalty. Better yet, find where I use a specific case to argue that we should have the death penalty.The only thing I am doing is trying to show that the claim that a death penalty will inherently mean the execution of an innocent person MUST happen.How I am doing this is using gedanken experiments. The best bet is to start with a clear cut case. We can use hypotheticals or real life cases, and from them generate rules of evidence such that we would only accept that level of evidence, and then work backward (making softer cases) until we reach a point that we cannot be practically certain.I could have just as easily worked in the other direction. I could have started with a case that is totally unjust, like Brenna offered, and worked my way upward, asking what is sufficient to negate each innocent person from being found guilty.Yeah, I could have started with either. But I started with the one I thought was easiest. The problem is no one even tried to gedank.It seems everyone really thought I was arguing look at this case, let's kill 'em all. That is right, that is why you create a system whose failure is not to execute when it should, rather than execute when it shouldn't. The idea that that level cannot be reached is simply a fallacy, at least with the arguments proposed.Just because something is flawed does not mean all flawed outcomes are possible.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

For acceptance as knowledge or equal theories absurdities can be labelled as impossible. That's the point. What the hell are you talking about? Your description does not match anything I have been trying to explain.Go to the logic page at Wikipedia. From there go to the deductive logic, inductive logic, scientific scepticism, and philosophical scepticism.With the exception of some term choices, you will find most of what I have explained here. More importantly you should start getting a pretty good grasp of where epistemology fits into science, and that the question of when we know something is not locked into scientific methods.What's more I'm sure you'll start reading sci scept and think you are one of them. That is the idea of treating every day concepts of "I know" according to scientific principles. However by the end you should start figuring out where you are going wrong. Although tentativity means all theories are "kept open", that does not rule out saying "I know". That is one hell of an important distinction.There is a practical point within real life where the only logical possibilities left, besides one, are those which would be excluded by current scientific methods. In those cases, despite tentativity, it is INCORRECT to treat any of the other logical possibilities as real or practical plausibilities and reject acceptin the single remaining logical possibility not excluded.I suppose I could quote Holmes at this point, but I won't.Once you say that ALL logical possibilities must be entertained as equal possibilities, or serious practical possibilities, one has left scientific scepticism, and the scientific method, and embraced a form of philosophical scepticism.Indeed, if you read through those pages you will also find a discussion of criticisms of sci scepticism, and it will look quite like what you are demanding once a "life is on the line". And as I said, which you will see, that is directly relatable to the creo epistemological position. Not sure what page you're on but there is more. The rules of knowledge are not static and one can find more than just the inductive fallacy. Oh yeah, if you read about that how did you not run into Hume, which backs up what I was saying here?You are trying to push for a level of skepticism which moves beyond normal scientific skepticism and into philosophical skepticism. That is in addition to rejecting the non sci-skeptics who have practical objections to these knowledge "problems". I am truly in bizarro world. On top of one of the most blatantly flagwaving bits of sentimentality I have ever seen coming from you, it includes blatantly false premises.We do not have a system predicated on benefit of the doubt. There are laws and they are backed by courts where you are expected to prove your innocence. You have a duty to provide proof of innocence or you are found guilty. Think it doesn't happen here, think again. Here's one for you: 18 2257.We do not have a system which guarantees unbiased juries, but instead has a selection process which can wind up hurting either side. It is not an automatic win for anyone.And your idea of people getting equal justice, have you heard of a public defender? They are not going to be going toe to toe with the DA the same as a high priced attorney. Plea deals are generally the norm, even if not for the best.For a guy trying to say I should be worrying about the possibility of corruption, where the hell is it? I have stars and stripes falling all over my head.Indeed the very idea that our system cannot be improved is just wild. Generally any system can be improved, and if you've been through our courts you should know they could use some work. Hell the people who work in them say they need work.In any case, the current rules for establishing guilt in general, beyond a reasonable doubt, are not strong enough to preclude innocents being found guilty. That is whether it is for the death penalty or not. That tends to say to me that the system needs some fixing.At the very least we need to heavily tighten the evidence necessary to allow for a death penalty. Even if you don't think it can get all innocent people from being executed, you should be able to recognize that it would be in improvement from what we have now, and if applied to non capital cases (to some degree) could improve problems with noncapital cases. I mean you just can't be serious can you? You can't see this is an out and out fallacy? That's funny, I started this thread. I even started it with a question that you continually refuse to answer. How you can tell me what is or is not relevant to a topic that I started is just ridiculous.That I add another question and explain its relevance, to hear "it's just not", is a failure on your part, not mine.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Really. Explain foundationalism and how it applies to justified knowledge. Oh wait, lets start with something easy. What is a justified true belief and how does it differ from knowledge?Yeah, I know you can look it up so it won't prove whether you actually knew it or not, but getting you to read something such that you can answer that question, you might start understanding you don't know what the hell you are talking about.Epistemology is a field of study. Scientific methods are a subset of epistemology. Scientific criteria are not set and have changed over years, and there are some criteria, or branches of epistemology which can demand more rigorous methods.What is "to know" can be quite extensive for needs and so unattainable, or general and so easy to reach. Neither guarantee better results. So why do you throw out the exclusionary rules regarding the viability of logical possilities, so that tentativity means all logical possibilities are practical plausibilities to be considered for cases of acceptance?I'm not arguing for it, you are. Well I'll tell you how stupid I didn't think you were. I did not think you were so ignorant as to turn science into dogma and utter the following... That is patently false. There are assumptions and potential fallacies within its assumptions. There are even acknowledged losses of possible knowledge.It is undoubtedly the best method we can use right now (it is still changing), in order to investigate natural phenomena using natural explanations.I like the scientific method, but it is not God either. And yes you can tighten rules of evidence even within science. This is saying quite clearly that rules of knowledge (when we can say we know) need to be adjusted due to moral reasons.So what is the adjustment? You are claiming that in a situation where there is but one logical possibility which scientific rules would not exclude, and thus it would be the justified belief or practical certainty or knowledge (whichever you want), we must remove exclusion rules in order that all logical possibilities come into play.That is NOT the scientific method, that is advocating philosophical scepticism. Despite tentativity, which has some practical and some metaphysical implications, when one is left with one remaining logical possibility not excluded, that becomes the ONLY rational choice to hold.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Yeah, I read it. It talks about what you said and already agreed with. Apparently like the questions I ask you directly, you cannot actually do something that might change your mind.Yes there is a problem and limit to induction. Now apply that to a murder case. I mean just read the above quote, does that sound like how they prove something? In murder cases, or any other investigation, even much of science, we use both induction and deduction. Wow, really? Does that mean you've read Hume and understand what he meant regarding other epistemological issues? Yep, his critique of induction has philosphical meanings. So did Descartes, if you ever reach the other pages. Then you will note at least for DesCartes, they say even he rejected some of his skepticism as practical for use in science.See there's this difference between philosophical and scientific rules of knowledge. Philosophically there are some problems for using induction, and that is exactly what creos help themselves to all the time. But for practical purposes, mixed with some fixes (one example is falsifiability), practical knowledge is possible. Whooooooooaaaaa. I was certainly making an error and creating a strawman and I apologize. That said I have no clue how you can build the argument above.Its not just a binary situation. His guilt requires actual real world facts (regardless of our knowledge), as well as his innocence.Those facts would necessitate some level of physical realities which can be tested.I do not see the situation as it being he is guilty or he is innocent. I see it as all of the evidence points toward the person's guilt balanced against whether there are any plausible scenarios where evidence could possibly exist (even if we may never reach it) that he is innocent.If we are down to no plausible scenarios, despite being logical possibilities, where evidence could be had for innocence, then it is not rational to hold anything but that he is guilty. And then you reverse yourself. In order for a person's innocence to be LOGICALLY impossible, one would by LOGICAL NECESSITY be requiring that all LOGICALLY POSSIBLE scenarios of his innocence be entertained.I am not sure how you do not see that that is a logical necessity. You are absolutely right. And even using science (which you have mocked into the grave with your ist all induction garbage) it would be impossible.I have never claimed a system that could remove all logical possibilities. That is because I do use a system (of knowledge, not guilt/innocence) which is modelled on the scientific process. Like it, I reject for practical purposes philosophical scepticism.It is important to hold for adjusting some theories, especially when in a room of philosophers and have a buzz on, but not useful in determining practical knowledge. Actually I'm not. If you look at the rest of the thread (or the other pages of wiki) you will discover this. In the end philosophical skepticism, where one must prove LOGICAL IMPOSSIBILITY, is not useful or desirable for real world living where knowledge is required.I do not require all LOGICAL POSSIBILITIES from being addressed before a state kills someone. I am very comfortable with that. Secret plan? At this point there have been two different systems moved forward. And yes any system can be improved. I suppose there will be reached a practical limit until new mechanisms are created for evidence, but yeah even my system can be improved.Heck, you should have already seen me accept what I view as a weaker system, just to allow people a psychological benefit of greater security (of not killing an innocent) though it has no practical value.The key is not to choose a system that will kill an innocent person. The trade off will be that less cases which might actually "call for" the death penalty, can have it applied. Dull. Very dull.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

1) Gould is NOT GOD, and everything he did and said was not all that could be said or is believed within science or philosophy of science... or more importantly what one considers knowledge for onesself.2) Although facts may be provisionsl, and conclusions tentative, that does not relieve anyone of the burden of what I pointed out. When you have only one remaining logical possibility that is not excluded, and the rest would be excluded, it is invalid to say any but the remaining choice is correct.(the only possible answer to this... i think... is what crash just came up with where we are not talking about evidence at all and just two possibilities, guilt or innocence regardless of avenues of evidence. Frankly I don't see where that fits into a scientific or most other knowledge systems, but maybe he can correct it.) The idea that knowledge is just what science says, or is strictly dominated by its rules, is not logically or objectively true. That is an epistemological position.If you don't believe me, go read the page on scientific scepticism at wikipedia.Even within that you will find that there are debates regarding how strong tentativity (though I think they don't use that word specifically) counts against knowledge.When you are writing a paper on something, based on fragmentary observations and data, it makes a lot of sense to phrase yoru words carefully and not consider things absolute.Unlike most subjects of scientific study, and certainly the stuff Gould was looking at, there are more cases of when there are no real logical possibilities left, except ones excluded from consideration. In that case it is unscientific and not very practical in my view, to reject the remaining non excluded possibility and embrace the others... just to be safe. I do not believe your assessment of Gould's actual meaning is correct. But if it is, then yes I disagree with him. There's be more than me as well (if what you are suggesting is what he meant). He was not the God of science, or knowledge, he was just a really bright guy that had some great ideas and essays. I'm sure he made some mistakes somewhere even in biology.Provisional acceptance, when it means accepting the equality of theories that are normally rejected, would be a bad idea in my mind.Like I said I love to think about that kind of stuff. That's why I don't dis creos as hard as I've seen others do. But it isn't practical and I'm more pragmatic in real life.Now you can certainly say you would want to embrace that level of scepticism. Okay then, I can accept that as an answer. The problem is putting on airs that it is factually superior, and more to the point it eliminates your credibility in knocking creos when they call for the same level of tentativity.I think you saw this first hand with that first thread Faith was in and I was backing her up (for a bit). She was pretty clearly using tentativity as you are now with this, to biological theories. Suddenly tentativity had to include acceptance of logical possibilities normally excluded. And the reason was clear, moral obligation.In the end it is not "wrong" to do this, but it has repercussions in consistency, and to my mind in practical reality.I'd rather just be against the death penalty because killing is wrong, than because I feel I must entertain any and all possibilities the person is innocent, even those I'd never accept in my life as cases of knowledge. The latter has a creeping epistemic nihilism I do not like.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

When you figure out that the above specifically says that you are for adjusting rules, you let me know.I'll try one time to point it out:You recognize different rules give different levels of confidence.
For X, because of quality Y, you demand higher levels of confidence.That means by any way you want to look at it, based on a nonepistemological question, you choose to adjust the rules.Wait, I think I just got it. You are not understanding what I meant by adjust the rules. I didn't mean change the rules within the same system, I mean change (switch) to as different system.You can call it for higher confidence, but I am pointing out that if by confidence you mean according to epistemic standards such as those held by science you are not.A higher set of standards would exclude more logical possibilities from consideration, not open them up.I think you are equivocating between confidence in correct idea to reality match, with confidence in not doing the wrong thing. The latter is an emotional assessment which does not require the former to be true. It is not unreasonable to hold the position that when something is important you end up wanting to use different criteria. What is unreasonable is to adopt that same criteria for essentially the same reason someone else does, and then say they are wrong.It is also unreasonable not to admit when the criteria you used to switch methods matches another case, and yet you did not switch it at that time.It is also unreasonable to construct arguments that other systems are not possible, or can have a better, or specified, result with respect to a subject, without ever addressing that other system and simply repeating your own as if its the best and only method.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)