Death Penalty and Stanley Tookie Williams

Thanks for the info (both to you and Nuggin). It doesn't have exactly the breakdown I wanted, but in the link you gave it summarizes the type of data I am looking for.I think this is important to look at as it suggests something about our court system in particular, in addition to impacting the question of the death penalty.From your link... This by itself states that it is not the form of sentence which is the cause of the greater cost, but rather how such cases are handled prior to the sentence. Correct me if I am wrong, but this does not indict capital cases for being too expensive, but rather the inexpense which with other cases are pursued? This is showing that more resources are spent in investigating the crime to get to a greater degree of accuracy in identifying the person to be charged.In addition a greater amount is spent in ensuring the fairness of the trial.Or one might ask whether murder cases that would merit a death penalty would require more intense work anyway?Perhaps cases where the death penalty is requested are the ones which are generally harder to find the suspect in question? I'm not sure if this is such a bad thing. If the main expense was in making extra sure the evidence is there, and the trial well worked through, then that's a good thing right?And the highlighted portion shows that amnesty is actually using the additional cost of life imprisonment as an argument against the death penalty.At best this seems to argue to me:1) There needs to be a better review for what cases should be allowed to proceed as dp cases.2) Circumstantial cases, which usually take more investigative work to patch together, should not be pushed for dp since they are more costly and also inherently prone to making the wrong verdict, or getting overturned later.Does this make sense?I'm certainly open to more detailed breakdowns including the kinds of cases compared.

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

Defend that statement. Why is it semantics or nonsense to criticize a person for arbitrary application of a moral rule? Do you not understand the difference between a rule and a value? Ironically, this shows that my efforts were not mere semantics and nonsense. You realize that a proof of disimilarity was in order. By the way I did not see a valid proof, try again. Remember your rule was based on comparison of outrage. I think one thing you'll discover is there might be a solution to the problem with the introduction of a new rule. Do I need to draw you a picture? If you have all X, then you can say absolute X. It does not matter that there is something else greater than X. First I draw a distinction between practical and wholly theoretical issues, and then state absolute practical. That is not true at all. As long as you knowingly assist a crime you are culpable in it, whether the other criminal is aware of your assistance or not. In this case the person is knowingly commiting overt criminal acts (tampering evidence, interfering with investigation, aiding a fugitive) which will aid in the escape of a murderer. This is besides the point. I have already suggested not all people who murder should be executed. Your scenario is that under my rule system a person frames himself for the type of murder which WOULD result in a death penalty. That means the perp is complicit in the worst kind of murders, and assisting that murderer to kill more. You know I have given you suggested practical guidelines for evidence TWICE now. And so has someone else. Give a practical answer to the question, instead of anwering it with a question. I PUT IT TO YOU FIRST. What practical issues could have been involved to forge the evidence? The definition of practical will not solve the problem. The difference between practical issues and theoretical ones have already been made. I gave an example even. I can't test a case against a definition.What I provided a long time ago, and recently outlined again, was a rule system for evidence BASED on that definition. That means YOU get to do the testing. Provide a scenario that it would fail under real life conditions... that is not appealing to BIV style issues.The only thing which seems remotely plausible is the suicide-case assisting a vicious killer by tying evidence to himself, in order to be killed by the state... apparently this suicide case wants to go out slowly. As I said, I don't know if you are BSing me or what. The above condition is impossible to be met. Indeed if you want theoretical certainty then its plausible NOT killing someone results in the deaths of thousands. This is where I think you are missing the point.You are claiming that you scale reduction of doubt based on severity. If wholly theoretical issues are to be entertained at ANY SPECIFIC LEVEL, then that intrinsically affects all other levels. If death is the condition which makes theoretical issues plausible for discussion, we must then look at the theoretical deaths within all other cases.Maybe I am missing what condition you are basing the importance of "certainty" on. Right now it appears to be death. I might ask in addition whether that is practical death or theoretical death. Okay I started with an emergency service call. You admit that despite your holding any conclusion tentatively, some conclusions demand a practical response.Lets move to the next level. A person is trying to kill your gf. You have a gun and a sure shot and if you don't pull the trigger to kill him, he will almost unquestionably kill your gf. Do you hold that all of this might very well be a an illusion of some kind, or do you treat it as a practical reality which must be dealt with? Would you pull the trigger? Tentativity becomes "all up in the air" when one includes ALL THEORETICAL POSSIBILITIES. I did not make that a condition, you did. You can say that theoretical possibilities are only entertained when a person is to be killed, but that raises the questions I have asked above.Although you may hold things as theoretically tentative, it is my guess that you live in the practical world, making decisions that consider only practical issues which might affect tentativity.

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

In this last post you claim to have never seen my evidence requirements for capital punishment cases, despite the fact we just finished arguing about what the results of that system was! Don't you remember? Earlier in this thread YOU stated you HAD seen it in the other thread, and that it involved such restrictions all executions would be impossible? That I had come over to your side?This back and forth comes from ad hoc reasoning on your part and its a waste of my time. I will go through the main important points here...1) LOGIC REGARDING SETS
All Possible Explanations is a set which includes the subsets of all THeoretical Explanations, and all PRactical Explanations. Thus APE contains all THEs and PREs.One cannot have absolute knowledge of APEs without absolute knowledge of THEs and PREs, but one have absolute knowledge of PREs. That is not hindered by any lack of knowledge of THEs since that is a separate subset.All that is required for absolute practical certainty is the accounting for (including discounting) all PREs.2) PRACTICAL vs THEORETICAL
I have briefly described this to you including an example using the very BIVs you brought up. I'm amazed I have to even discuss the difference.Practical certainty deals only with possibilities/explanations within the shared experiential world, and within that world, limited to possibilities that are useful for the case under consideration. Theoretical certainty would involve BIVs, Pink Unicorns, and outlandish conspiracies with no evidentiary connection despite the massive effort they would involve. The example I gave showed that one can have practical certainty despite being a BIV.The definition however is not as important as how one goes about constructing rules for practical decision making.3) TIGHTER EVIDENTIARY RULES
First of all, one can create rules based on looking at real cases starting where one is certain, barring only metaphysical tricks or near metaphysical conspiracy and thinking what evidence that includes. Or one can start by thinking of theoretical cases that are complex (including conspiracies) and what would kinds of evidence would be made useless on its own, but what combination might reduce chance of mistake due to the growing implausibility of the only possible conspiracy.Earlier in this thread Flies gave a breakdown of a system which was pretty close to what I gave within the other thread. The key is layering evidentiary requirements.My suggested system requires: Live witnesses (more than 2 wholly unrelated and not connected in any social sense), Photographic evidence (uncontested nontampering), physical evidence corroborating connection of suspect to victim as well as weapon used and witnesses to the crime scene (again uncontested nontampering).This can be strengthened by including confession, and further still by request of death sentence. These would have to be made in a relatively public setting, and confirmed as accurate by a psychologist and family/friends, as well as reconfirmed by the defendant before the execution is carried out. With the inclusion of confession I believe tradeoffs to other requirements could be allowed.In any case, I would also rule out murders based on economic, political, or temporary social conditions. The goal would be to remove those with a compulsion to kill or proclivity to violence which ends in murder. A psychological examination could aid in this.Now produce a plausible scenario.4) SUICIDE BY JURY
The only plausible scenario, especially under the strictest standard would be a suicide who aids a real killer. Now why this hypothetical suicide would go through all of that rather than just charge police with a weapon, I don't know.But your assertion such a person is not culpable and should not be considered to have commited such a high crime is not obvious at all. The person will have let a real killer escape to potentially or actually kill again.Your analogy to a cashier is also incorrect. The cashier is being robbed, coerced. The cashier IS the victim. If a cashier just starts handing out money to people that ask for it, or destroys evidence that would be helpful for a bank robber, the cashier would definitely be implicated for the crime.I would not care if the state killed such a person. By the way if you wanted to downplay even this possibility you could require that the person has a history of violence or conviction of a previous murder.

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

Discipline crash. Apply more discipline to avoid ad hoc reasoning. This is yet another turn. First you say you did see my standard. Then you say you never saw me create a standard. And now you return to admitting you saw me create a standard. The question was not whether you remembered what was within the standard, but whether I had ever posted one at all. Remember? You shifted to a position accusing me of asserting that I had, but I never really did.I'm glad we can have that settled now... right? So one cannot say I have ownership over absolutely all black pens in my apartment, because there may be nonblack pens in my apt as well as black pens outside of my house? Inspection of the term absolute reveals only that your position is absolutely flawed. You can definitely use absolute to refer to the contents of a subset. ??? I don't need to do that at all. Why would I? You do have the ability to discern between what you experience and what you do not, correct? If you and I both experience something, then it is by definition part of our shared experiential world. Theoretical ones involve appeals to mechanisms beyond our shared experiential world, in other words beyond evidence (to make it very short), as well as those that appeal to possibilities that could have evidence but none is provided and the reason given for this lack of evidence is connections between vast numbers of overtly unconnected people in an orchistrated conspiracy. The last is certainly useless as far as law goes, as if they have the power to do that, they could just as easily kill you anywhere else.Practical vs Theoretical its really quite easy. What bullshit. I was going through a short list, without details. But they shouldn't be hard to fathom... Well we can count. We can count, right? And I did not just say impartial. I said unrelated and unconnected in any social sense. Now how would I figure out whether two people were unrelated or unconnected in a social sense to each other? Oh its a mindbender. Sheesh. First of all, you want me to go into detailed forensic explanations of how we determine if something could or could not have been tampered with? For a guy trying to argue that 911 was the result of faking planes bringing down two buildings (using EVIDENCE), your position here seems a bit disigenuous.Secondly I did not just say untampered. I said UNCONTESTED. That means all a defendent has to do is raise a reasonable argument that the evidence could have been tampered with. Boy do you have that wrong. You begin by working on how evidence can be invalidated, and then what evidence would be so separate such as to make the possibility of the first one being fake a practical nonissue.Believe it or not this does work in reality, especially if one allows the defendent to use potential for tampering as a valid way to remove the possibility for a death penalty. If there is a potential for lies, then they just need to raise it. If they do not, then the potential is reduced to 0 by the defendant themself.I mean what the heck, I had confession of the defendant, certified by an independent psychologist, and backed again before execution. How is that possibly going to be a potential lie?What I think is funny is that I also added the possibility of requiring having been convicted of such an offense before, or request for DP by the defendant. How are those going to possibly be potential lies? Once again showing that you simply do not bother to read when your mind is made up. It was not just undetected, it was UNCONTESTED. And as far as confession extracted by coercion goes, this is what I said... Public setting, confirmed by psychologist and family/friends, as well as reconfirmed by the defendent before the execution? What possible coercion could there be? Let me point out how disappointed I am to see you return (after an absence), only to conduct debate in the same low standards practiced before your departure.Your strawman of my position is burned, now deal with my actual position.

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

Heheheh... I've been liking your posts so don't take what I'm about to write as a slam on you personally. What an intelligent, righteous, mature, and civilized argument to make. I'm for the death penalty. While you may feel so offended by the death penalty that you wish the above were true, its not true. Let's leave off the name-calling okay? Agreed. But there are people who will not be rehabilitated. While I don't believe the state should be dealing in "punishment", that is for individuals to do in hot fits of rage, society can remove people so long as they are a threat. This could be permanent removal for those that are known murderers who are highly likely to kill again. They are the equivalent of a rabid dog.In an earlier post you tied $$$ to guilt or innocence. I agree with this sentiment. It is a problem that needs to be fixed within the system, and simply removing the death penalty does not solve that major flaw.Adding a handful of innocent people on death row to those massive amounts of innocent people with long or life sentences, somehow does not seem like the answer.The flaws of using the death penalty are evidentiary problems at court. They need to be tightened. The flaws with cases involving other sentences are also evidentiary and ought to be tightened. The difference between the two is that one needs to be tightened more than the other. Okay.As far as rich people getting better treatment than poor people, that is a problem in how courts are run... the adverserial process we use. I think the evidence is in that it is a flawed procedure and needs to be fixed.I'm tired of seeing the death penalty being used as a scape goat for the problems of the legal system. To me its like watching people blame sex and violence on tv for what is happening in society.

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

That's not what I am trying to say. The pen analogy was correct as I wrote it. Let me try another that is more simple...X=A+B While All X requires All A and All B (no fractions for either), All A does not require one have All X or All B. A is an entity in and of itself. In this case that would be practical certainty (the set of certainties involving wholly practical issues). This makes no sense as far as general epistemology goes, much less the specific context we are discussing (court cases). The shared experiential world would be what is capable of being experienced, even if one has not yet had such an experience. That you have not experienced a shoe in a store down the street, does not make that shoe something outside the shared experiential world. I'll start by disputing that this is even an argument. Its as if you think using important sounding words makes name calling something valid. Note your indisputable fact is at best an assertion. ??? Way off. Are you suggesting you do not know what forms of experience you share with others in this world? Or at worst, that you believe you cannot come to an understanding which forms of experience are shared with others? The explanation of HOW, would always be case specific. That makes trying to explain a general rule pointless, and a complete explanation exhaustive. You don't know what uncontested means? It does not mean shifting the burden of proof to the accused. It actually eases the defense by not needing evidence to prove tampering. Oh and by the way, this was not about winning the case, it was about the prosecution being able to use the death penalty. So you don't know how trials work either? All evidence is not considered suspect, evidence is considered neutral. The accused is considered innocent until evidence is provided in an amount and such a way as to prove guilt in a courtroom. It is not demanded that the prosecution provide evidence that the evidence they provided was not the product of tampering. Uh... I was working under the assumption we weren't discussing the suicide abetting the serial killer. Remember I said that's what it comes down to, and then you implied it didn't. Why would a nonsuicide lie to a psych about whether the confession was coerced or not? What possibility? That a person is coerced into being executed against their will by an invisible force which prevents them from saying "I was coerced", even at the moment of execution? It appears to me that you don't like the death penalty and in order to make your desire sound reasonable, you have chosen a criteria which is impossible to meet. A criteria you would not accept in any other part of your life.The more important an issue is the more serious and REASONABLE a person should be. Introducing illogic and courting incredible theoreticals is not treating the issue with a greater seriousness and reason. It is NOT becoming more rigorous.If a person said to you knowledge regarding the beginning of life is so important to get right we must be more rigorous, and so teach ID, I doubt you'd agree that was correct.

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

I've never been a big fan of Dawkins so it's no surprise I'd disagree. His reasoning in this case is worse than normal. Fawlty logic... Many do, but they don't all have to. He never mentions the argument I made, and some also use. Yet he uses an attack on this single position as if it has relevance for the death penalty. This is wholly fallacious. The scientific view of human behavior is that people do use retribution within moral principles. That's about it. He never gets around to explaining how science actually rules anything "incompatible" as a moral principle. People throw out and otherwise destroy faulty equipment, especially if it poses an ongoing threat. Equipment, and specifically computers, are NOT bound by moral or legal codes. The above statement is about as ridiculous as arguing we shouldn't tax people because we don't tax computers. Not at all. Whether machines or not, one of our "programs" is certainly the ability to choose between actions, even when a choice is hard. It can be argued that some lack such programming, but that is not the majority, and does not erase the question of what we should do with the individual machine which is malfunctioning. The functional capabilities of the human mind are arguably the product of evolution. There is no degree of evidence strong enough to suggest that the "truer analysis" of the world is humans incapable of choice, being machines destined to do whatever they are going to do because of wholly external pressures.Human minds, even those within a mechanistic universe, can have the ability to self-analyze their systems... a cross checking program.

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

Wow, you sure can use big words. Unfortunately they don't add up to anything. I showed you why the pen analogy did fit as I wrote it, using a very simple semi-symbolic logic example. You didn't address it at all and instead asserted the above.Here it is again... Now you explain why that is wrong, or using a similar simple diagramming system, detail your argument above. First of all I said EXPERIENTIAL not experimental. Secondly your "requirement" is a red herring. There is no logical reason anyone would have to provide such a test.Other than your saying so, you haven't provided an argument of why it would be useful, much less necessary. What I can also recognize is that it isn't necessary. We are discussing what we can do in the real world. What we can agree is our experiential world. I'll try this once more...In the BIV world they can operate according to "practical reality" of the world in which they live (as set by the mad scientist). That at any point the scientist may reveal to one or more of the BIVs the nature of their condition and so destroy that "practical reality" for them, is irrelevant.That avenue of argument is a nonstarter, since if one does start down that road then ALL other arguments (such as against the death penalty or for preemptively killing everyone right now) are made level. It validates any and all positions. The fact that you think you can choose only those which discredit the death penalty (to play it safe) shows the arbitrariness of your application... because you aren't actually playing it safe, you are only picking the ones that reach your a priori conclusion. No, I did respond. I said it wasn't an argument. You simply made an assertion. All you need to use to create rule systems is what forms of experience we do share, which is what we have understood from past experience. There is no need to appeal to the possibility of future forms of experience.If new forms of experience become available then we can adjust our rules at that point. ???? Our practical reality is one of objects and individuals functioning in a three dimensional environment (four if you count time).The state of modern philosophy is it's impossible to know? Really? Please list your reading material. But it's not impossible to know what is required for what I set out. You are trying to conflate practical and theoretical knowledge. That is to say because I can't know that I know that I know etc etc (using a justification system), or more simply put because I don't know the ultimate nature of the universe I cannot make a statement of what I know based on rules bounded by our shared experiential environment. That is not so, as I have already explained using BIVs. I did say they needed a "reasonable argument" and that isn't contradictory with assertion of tampering. It doesn't have to be proven but it should be within reason. For example if a piece of evidence is well documented to be in one place, and the defense asserts it just wasn't without any plausible mechanism for it getting from one place to another, than that wouldn't count. After all if the defense is arguing conspiracy then they should have some idea what that conspiracy is and how it works.Invisible Keebler elves won't work. It was an explanation of why you would not get such an answer. It requires case specific explanation. There is no such thing as general forensics rules that fit everything so that is out. And to go over all forensics would be exhaustive.Your argument is like a creo demanding an explanation for how each rock in the world got to where it was and how you determined that, and your understandable nonresponse proving that geology and physics don't exist. Hahahahahahaha... part of my work with the govt was dealing with SOPs with regard to evidence and data, some specifically with relation to evidence for court. You really just love to talk about stuff you have 0 knowledge of.The evidence is simply entered. It does not come into court as suspect. Yes rules for collecting evidence are in place, and yes they do help to ensure validity. These rules help prevent accusations of tampering, or defend against accusations when they are made. That is wholly different than saying all evidence is doubted.It is for the jurors, or court, to piece together evidence and it may be that one group of evidence indicates that another group is to be considered dubious. That's not the question. Your scenario involves someone giving their life such that a real killer will go free. If I am willing to do that then I am culpable for that anyway. I do not see how I could be coerced into such a situation or anyone else for that matter.How does one get coerced into getting themselves executed if they really don't want that to happen?Also, and I am still really curious about this, why would such a vast conspiracy necessary to conduct such a scheme not simply kill the person and then frame them? Each of your scenarios involves vast conspiracy in order to achieve a result capable of being produced more easily without using a drawn out murder trial. Don't you see where you are simply using what you want to justify the rule system used, rather than using an actual system to justify a conclusion?I don't like this so I demand others comply with an impossible criteria, is not reasonable at all. You might as well jump to the end and say what you mean: I don't like it so no matter what you say I think it's wrong. You aren't actually using a system and its sort of insulting to pretend you are.

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

I wasn't criticizing you for using big words. I was criticizing you for using them in place of an actual argument. All you did was use large words as part of an assertion. That doesn't make it any less an assertion, or more of an argument. But you didn't explain and you didn't detail. You asserted a position and when given a counterargument which included not just an explanation but first an analogy and then a simple diagram of the logical structure, you just reasserted your position in different words.Here's how real logical argument works: One person makes and argument and another deals with the argument by advancing new information which attacks a plank of the original argument (as well as any that might build upon their own position).And what's real nifty is that one does not need huge words to make one's point. That's what symbolic logic is used for. And you'd know that since you supposedly had symbolic logic.Now deal with the argument I made, by offering NEW information, not new words. Look, I don't know if you believe I am lying about having a degree in this or not, but take a step back for a second and think about how much impact that sentence would have on someone with a degree in the subject. Yes I understand the words, that's why I can recognize you are not addressing my argument. But we don't need such a test. If you are claiming that you cannot tell what forms of experience we share to make up our shared reality then you cannot claim to be a scientist or follow science. When asking the question of if X killed Y, there is only a certain amount of NATURAL phenomena that one can appeal to for evidence.You remember the difference between natural and supernatural right? Perhaps the confusion stemmed from my using different words.Intriguingly I stated what our shared experiential world was and you refused to address it in your response. It described our shared world according to natural mechanisms we obtain from experience.Yes, theoretically there may be supernatural phenomena, or perhaps some natural phenomena we have yet to witness. But that does not change our ability to reach practical conclusions about practical reality and reach practical certainty... practical being a discussion of what we can know and not allusions to what may come to shatter all current natural understanding. That especially when we are asking a simple causal connection between X and Y. But I have answered your question. And no my responses do not bother me because they are forthright and not evasive. The are also reasonable, which yours cannot claim to be. Can you spot how many fallacies this so called "argument" contains? I think that point is moot. The idea that certain questions cannot reach a practical conclusion because theoretically all natural concepts may be destroyed at some point in the future is fallacious.And remember this is what we are discussing at this point in time. It is not some new experience of evidence we can obtain, it is a new form of experience which reveals a new world such that what we would obviously decide is the culprit is just a BIV set up by the mad scientist (to use an analogy).Discussions of BIVs within the field have resulted in people understanding your form of argument is without merit. It makes the concept of knowledge and learning and decision making pointless. And that does not support your assertion that such an obliteration supports your position on the death penalty. What it does is removes yours and mine equally. Unless of course you are going to be arbitrary and say we should only include what helps your position and excludes mine. I'm sorry what? I gave you the BIV scenario. You have as yet not addressed it at all. And by the way your overuse of the word assertion is starting to get annoying. Here is the BIV scenario again (more briefly)...BIVs share a "practical reality" which consists of experiences that all BIVs share in a consistent manner, fed to them by a mad scientist. That is their "experiential world". Although real, as long as it is unknown, the possibility that they are just BIVs remains a theoretical reality to them. Thus they can act within their practical reality and gain practical knowledge about it. That it is an illusion makes NO DIFFERENCE to them in any practical sense. Only at such time as the mad scientist begins removing cause and effect connections (or any other consistency) within their experiential world, would appeals to practical reality be useless to them.YOU brought up BIVs, I went with them, then you gave up. Talk about evasion. Let's see something already. That did not answer my question at all. I asked HOW can a person be coerced to do such a thing if they really don't want to? If they don't want to then they could escape the death penalty. Thus the only people who are able to slide under the radar are suicides willing to aid and abet a murderer.Remember I already admitted that this is the only theoretical possibility, then you said it wasn't. That's what you were challenged to show, and here we are right back to my point.If you admit that the only people that could slip through are suicides bent on aiding a real murderer, then we can move on to the next issue which you bring up here (though ironically already dealt with elsewhere in this thread). Not from any reason based standpoint which is what you are trying to suggest. You are arguing that there is some sliding scale of evidence based on importance, and that because death is so important only a scale which denies all evidence as possible is sufficient. That is pretty convenient and as I have already argued makes little sense.That means that rules get tighter and there are greater exclusions of theoreticals in your scale up until death is the question (the supposedly most important issue) and then all rules disappear and all theoreticals allowed. That's a loss of reason, not an increase.

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

There was nothing contradictory between the two statements. Here they are again in full (notice that when not shortened the two look even more alike... vs The only question I have is how you do not see that they say the same thing? You used big words, but the big words didn't change the fact that you used an assertion instead of an argument. This simply isn't going to work against me. Let's say for argument's sake that you did lay out an argument. But then let's say for argument's sake that I missed it. Why don't you repeat that counter argument.Please use symbologic logic (even a simplified version) in order to avoid any possible confusion. If it helps any maybe you can think of it as metaphysical vs physical? Again you have lost yourself in metaphysical discussion. We cannot reach certainty that any explanation does not have a different metaphysical explanation. We can however limit the amount of practical physical explanations. With whether X murdered why, the practical physical bounds are even further defined.DeCartes and Hume were two "pioneers" in this form of skepticism. Hume especially is useful in this instance. He used an example of billiard balls. We can for all practical purposes say that one moves and its knocking into another causes the second to move, thought theoretically that might not be the correct causational mechanism at all. His work was on destroying absolute concepts of knowledge, but it is metaphysical knowledge. Others post Hume (and somewhat within Hume himself) examined that as long as it is consistent the practical knowledge is sufficient for explanation. And one CAN have practical knowledge. The only thing I am uncomfortable with are statements that you are actually using a system, indeed demanding a system that is more stringent based on a scale of increasing stringency due to the importance of the question.If you simply said you don't like it and so you don't want it, especially because you fear something might happen to you no matter the system in place... okay. Well it seems pretty obvious to me that we are done. I answer your questions and you claim I don't. You claim to answer mine when there isn't an answer to be found.For example I have mentioned BIVs a few times already to describe the difference between practical and theoretical knowledge or certainty, including the last post... where is your response?If you really have nothing else to say, then I'm perfectly comfortable leaving anyone reading our posts to decide for themselves who made their point. Then show me your very simple answer. Yes that is unreasonable, when all doubt has to include purely theoretical (metaphysical) doubts. That is to say when you have courts limited because there might be a conspiracy of invisible pink ponies using their padded pantaloons to force people to do things and alter videotape... you have not made your system MORE rigorous. You have abandoned systems altogether.I gave an analogy to this. If someone felt that knowledge about the beginning of life is more important than whether an innocent man is put to death, would it be reasonable for them to demand science accept any and all theories?And as I already told you, if that is true, if all theoretical entities must be entertained, then one must also entertain the theoreticals that not killing the defendant is actually killing him and maybe 20 more people, or that not killing is actually killing... THEY just want us to believe we are saving people so that they can kill more!I would hope you see the problem with that. And to say you will only select the theoretical entities which support your position, is to be arbitrary even within your nonrigorous system. It is to say I only want to hear doubt, because I don't want X. Right. We can end it here then. I'm fine with it.

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

There is a definition of science that the govt uses. That was eventually revealed in the Kansas debates regarding ID. The argument the ID camp (and some creationists) use is that determining the TRUTH is so important that ALL theories must be entertained.Thus the board altered the definition of science so that instruction in science would be "improved" or "strengthened" by allowing essentially any and all theories to be examined.Your argument supports that, but I don't believe you agree with that at all.It is true anyone can do anything and call it science, but you have berated enough people here for doing just that.In fact modern science DOES have a methodology, so do courts for handling evidence. The point of these methods... derived over years of reflecting and improving on the methodology... is to focus effort on practical or reasonable possibilities, so they do not waste time entertaining theories that have no possibility of being determined, and even if they did would have no practical benefit if they were treated as existing.When systems become more rigorous they usually remove more theories from possibility by bounding what can be addressed, and ask for more evidence from within the remaining sources of evidence.In the end, forced entertainment of any and all theories is less rigorous a system and involves less reason. It demands repeal of logic and learned empirical rules regarding acquisition of knowledge. It appears greatly self-serving when this demand arbitrarily then asks entertaining ONLY those theories which lend support for your position, and in no other circumstance would you agree such a system would be rigorous and worthwhile.If your position is now that modern science can be called anything, be conducted in any way, and instructed in any way, entertaining all theories including purely metaphysical constructs, then that should be very interesting to watch you argue against creationists in the future.What would be your basis for argument against them? If it is just that they won't have the power to convince others, then you are fully supporting what creationists are contending all along... science is nothing but modern religion smashing down those they do not like.This message has been edited by holmes, 01-04-2006 05:26 AM

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

If you do it too, then you are being hypocritical to berate them, as well as getting upset when they berate you for doing what they themselves do.In any case, my main point was that modern science has a history which has resulted in a real methodology. Perhaps you can call anything science, but technically modern science is not just anything.

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

I'd agree in general, but there are limits. Doesn't it matter if that one person happens to be you or your kid's science teacher?

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

Maybe I should have been more clear... I was kind of just making a joke so wasn't going for the fine details. While anyone can do what they want and call it science, when it comes down to important things like education, that is not possible, right?Certification of science teachers would involve making sure they knew and could relate proper methodology. That would be decided somewhat by consensus of those within the field, right?

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

That's a pretty good point. Yes I am advocating that where it does not exist as standards already (districts or schools), in large part because I was lucky enough to go to schools that generally had degreed candidates in fields teaching those subjects.I guess as far as my general point was concerned I should not have said certification, but rather allowing a teacher to continue teaching a subject. Even where certification does not require standard education in a field, they usually are (from what I understand) expected to adhere to instruction of a knowledge set within a field, and for science that would include proper methodology. I had actually forgotten (possibly suppressed) some of the shocking experiences I have had with those looking to become teachers. I had to help many because I was in science and they needed to figure something out. They suggested the same thing that you did, that the concept was to have a generalized teacher who specialized in "teaching" rather than a subject.When I asked why they did not have an interest in learning the subject (rather than getting my help here and there on specific points) the answer was invariably that they didn't really care about science, they just wanted to teach!Actually maybe that experience was buried by the more shocking experience of having nurses and other premed students say the same thing. Why do I need to know about chemistry, and how to convert? I just want to help people!uhoh. Its a long and winding road.

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