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Author | Topic: Zephan: What is Evidence? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
John Inactive Member |
quote: Please cite what would be acceptable evidence that is NOT percievable via one or more of the five senses.
quote: Interesting... and what exactly does the court accept as stronger evidence than eyewitness testimony? ... ballistic data, fingerprint data, fiber analysis, DNA profiling ... wait ... but all of that is information aquired by scientist via their five senses and thus all of it is on par with eyewitness testimony according to you. And also according to you -- no argument here-- eye-witness testimony is subject to a multitude of interpretations. It seems you have reduced all evidence to a very doubtful state.
quote: You are correct that sensory perceptions are subject to error. That is why it is an important component of science that these perceptions be reproducible and that results be independently verified. These things serve to weed out the fluke observations. To wit, is it better to have one witness state something, or to have ten witnesses state the same thing? How about a hundred witnesses? Or a thousand?
quote: In a sense it is. A large part of science is the weeding through data to find evidence. Observations are data. Anything could be data, I supposse. Reproducible and independently verifiable observations become evidence. The evidence is worked into theory, which is the other half of science. ------------------
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John Inactive Member |
Bias is acceptable evidence? That's idiotic.
But I suspect you were not answering the question at all, but avoiding it. Typical. Why would you avoid such a simple question? hmmm... probably because you can't name a type, or cite an example, of acceptable evidence that is not sensory. Yet you have already criticised such evidence. You are trapped by your own words. ------------------
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John Inactive Member |
quote: That's nice, but doesn't remotely address the issue. Please cite what would be acceptable evidence that is NOT percievable via one or more of the five senses. What, in this case, would be the NON-SENSORY evidence of bias? You're dancing.
quote: Yup, sure have heard of it. And it involves sensory data. How is it we know about researcher bias anyway? hmmm... I bet some researchers OBSERVED SOME THINGS and deduced researcher bias from those observations. So, I guess, we can't depend on that either, being as it is inferred from sensory data and hence is no better than questionable eye-witness testimony.
quote: And bias is determined via what non-sensory method? As Mr. P suggested, perhaps ESP? I bet if one wished to show bias in court, one would bring in STUFF, and stuff is as we know PERCIEVABLE. So precisely where is the non-sensory data which isn't "like the description of the logical foundation for eyewitness testimony" and which is not therefore "subject to a multitude of interpretations?"
quote: In the context of science, seems like this would fall under bias. But just for fun, if you were to try to demonstrate motive, what non-sensory data would you use? ------------------
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John Inactive Member |
quote: Like bias and like motive, this is based on observation. It is an interpretation.
quote: Whaddayaknow? An inference from CIRCUMSTANCES? And an OBSERVER? Smacks of "description of the logical foundation for eyewitness testimony, which most everyone is aware is subject to a multitude of interpretations."
quote: You consider bias, motive and intent to be direct observations? You can't be serious? The rest of it is meaningless.
quote: Actually... the issue is this...
Zephan post #36 writes: First, cite the relevant scientific journal which validates your alleged issue, to wit: anything perceivable to the five senses is, in fact, objective evidence (might I add, evidence of precisely what? -- it really sounds like the description of the logical foundation for eyewitness testimony, which most everyone is aware is subject to a multitude of interpretations). Or was it "anything perceivable to the five senses is science?" (you said that too) ... which is the criticism of sensory data as being unreliable as is often the case with eyewitness testimony. Thus far, you have not addressed the issue.
quote: However, to demonstrate, or attempt to prove or verify, that one of these processes is in effect, you must use inferences from sensory data. Simply stating that this or that is bias is not evidence. You have to prove it. Do you claim otherwise? And how does one prove it without resorting to those damned unreliable sense organs? To wit, you haven't produced anything remotely objective, or anything that can stand on its own as evidence.
quote: You are correct that these things cannot be directly observed, but as you also rightly point out they can be inferred from circumstances. This is the ONLY way we have access to knowledge of these things, except in our own brains ( perhaps ). But this brings us right back to dependence upon sensory data, and you disallow that. Thus your whole chain of reasoning fails.
quote: I'm sorry? Did you not post bias, motive and intent as if they were evidence? Lets see.... ah... from just a few sentences up in this very post:
quote: quote: That is very much the question. I think most here will agree that at the least evidence needs to be verifiable by anyone who wishes to check the results. The alternative is that any claim made is on par with all others, no matter how odd the claim may be. "Pigs fly" suddenly stands on equal footing with "birds fly." Suppose I am the only one making the claim? Doesn't matter. The second you start asking other people if they have seen pigs fly you have introduced the idea of verifiability. It is, in fact, introduced as soon as you wonder whether you have ever seen a pig fly.
quote: But you introduced such things as alternatives to objective evidence. That does not make sense.
quote: Sure looks like a retraction... At any rate, we have been discussing whether evidence percievable to the five senses is relevant. You are the one who criticised such evidence, and got caught in the absurdity of the criticism. You equated sensory evidence to eye-witness testimony, and implied it was therefore unreliable. Now you pretend differently? ------------------
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John Inactive Member |
quote: And now you know why? ------------------
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John Inactive Member |
quote: ah... but this doesn't count, Zephan. You've discounted eye-witness testimony back in Post #36 and, in fact, again right here, as you call such witness "hot air". It appears that you are happy with eye-witness testimony when making your case, but object when scientists "eye-witness" the results of experiment, or the layers of rock on the side of a hill, or ... whatever. Which is it? If your example of eye-witness testimony is valid as evidence then your whole whine about objective evidence is crap.
quote: But it is you who just presented such opinion as evidence... Care to read your own post? The rest of your post is really just diversionary. ------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com [This message has been edited by John, 04-04-2003] [This message has been edited by John, 04-04-2003] [This message has been edited by John, 04-04-2003] [This message has been edited by John, 04-04-2003]
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John Inactive Member |
quote: Yes. And your criticism of scientific evidence in Post #36 is utterly absurd because it reduces everything to the same state of unreliability. You can't even make your own arguments without calling upon this invalid evidence. You criticise the perceptions of xcientists as being like eye-witness testimony, yet hasten to call in eye-witnesses as evidence. It would be funny if not so frighteningly sad. It is this one point that I am driving at, and it is this one point that you avoid. You cannot use the criticism of science listed in Post #36. It is insane.
quote: BS. You aren't cross-examining, you are obfuscating.
quote: No, these things are not directly percievable to the senses. But then, that isn't the point. More obfuscation. The point is that you equated observation via the five sense with eye-witness testimony and thereby attempted to discredit it. Shall I quote you? Why not...
Zephan in Post #36 writes: First, cite the relevant scientific journal which validates your alleged issue, to wit: anything perceivable to the five senses is, in fact, objective evidence (might I add, evidence of precisely what? -- it really sounds like the description of the logical foundation for eyewitness testimony, which most everyone is aware is subject to a multitude of interpretations). Or was it "anything perceivable to the five senses is science?" (you said that too) And after having used eye-witness testimony to discredit observation via the senses, you post eye-witness testimony as an alternative to 'unreliable' sensory data. Like I said, it would be funny if it were not so frightening. Of what you post, inferences and deductions are blatantly subservient to observation. Opinions I'd call weak inferences and/or sloppy deductions and so are arguably subservient to observation as well. And assumptions and presumption....? You present these as evidence? These are alternatives to observation?
[quote]Surely, you wouldn't bootstrap any of the above concepts onto what you would later like to qualify as competent scientific evidence?[quote]
Science isn't immune to any of the problems associated with these things, but the scientific method is designed to minimize those problems. Which is why I say that pretty much anything can be raw data, but what gets filtered through the scientific method becomes evidence. Inferences and deductions are based on that evidence and the cycle restarts. That must have been one of my posts you ignored. You, on the other hand, appear to be attempting to maximize the influence of opinion, presumption, bias, etc. ------------------
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