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Author | Topic: Who won the Collins-Dawkins Debate? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: No, actually, we would most definitely clamor for a study on how a group of people started regrowing lost limbs. We would want to use the very most vigorous scientific methodology in order to learn everything we possibly could about this limb regrowth.
quote: I think that you still have some fundamental misunderstanding of science if you believe this to be the case. Sure, studies vary in quality, and some that are published and reported on later turn out to have some serious flaws. However, by and large, the standards that Percy and I have been talking about are, indeed, followed in the vast, vast majority of published scientific papers. Otherwise, they wouldn't pass peer-review. We're talking hundreds of thousands of papers per year.
quote: See, that's very good. That a study produces more questions for further investigation is a sign that the scientific process is working and that this line of investigation is a fruitful one with lots to discover.
quote: Just because a study doesn't answer ALL questions regarding a phenomena doesn't mean it hasn't answered ANY. And just because scientists may disagree on the interpretation of the data doesn't mean the data wasn't gathered or analysed under rigorous scientific standards. And remember, science isn't done by one or a few people. Any one particular study is a narowly-focused, closeup snapshot of approximate reality. You need many such snapshots, often captured over decades, of the same landscape before you begin to be able to get any kind of coherent overall picture. Edited by nator, : No reason given.
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: See, this is your bias showing again. If you think that prayer works, why wouldn't you try emptying hospital wards and nursing homes? Look, you've likely made scores of prayers that failed, and you've discounted them or simply forgotten those "misses". That is a form of confimation bias. It surely looks as though, even if all of those failures were painstakingly recorded somehow and you saw the enormous list, you would still just point to your several spectaular-looking sucesses. It appears to me that you are taking great pains to shield yourself from any possible negative evidence.
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: LOL! Of course you don't believe that you are deluded. That's the nature of delusion, isn't it? If you knew you had deluded yourself, you wouldn't be deluded anymore. And confimation bias is completely pervasive and insidious and second-nature in the everyday cognition of all of humanity. The ONLY way to counter it in situations like we've been discussing is by the double-blind methods percy and I have been harping on about.
quote: I know you haven't been trying to talk me out of anything. It is as though, however, that percy and I have been pointing out the flaws in your logic and the bias you keep displaying, and you keep restating them in different ways, which we then address a second, and third time, etc. Honestly, it's like you are putting up some kind of barrier to keep yourself from applying what we've been saying to your own situation.
quote: Just "paying attention" isn't enough, tl. Even if you pay attention "a lot". That's the entire point of this discussion between the three of us. If "paying attention a lot" was enough, double blind studies wouldn't have near the clout in, say, medical testing, that they do. That's because we've identified something called "observer" or "experimenter effect", which is when the person making the observation can influence the oucome of a test if they know what the outcome of the experiment is supposed to be. So, "double blind", where neither the thing or person being tested, nor the person administering the test, knows what the result is "supposed" to be, is the best possible test wrt eliminating bias.
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
You really need to redesign your car experiment, mike.
It won't tell you anything meaningful as it is. In fact, it's completely incomprehensible and there is no possible way that one could come to the conclusions you say I would by folowing your method.
quote: No mike. You count the positives, and we count the positives, the negatives, and the neutrals. Remember what I wrote way back in message #124 of this thread:
No, no, no, no, truthlover, you have gotten it so wrong! I say, YES, let's look at the evidence! Let's look at ALL of it, though, not only the hits. quote: Right. Exactly. Everybody is biased. I wonder if there is a method we can use to examine a phenomena with as little influence from bias as possible? Can you think of one, mike? 'Explanations like "God won't be tested by scientific studies" but local yokels can figure it out just by staying aware of what's going on have no rational basis whatsoever.' -Percy "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."- Richard Feynman "Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends! Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!"- Ned Flanders
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Nah, you can call me whatever you like (within reason).
Of course you don't believe that you are deluded. That's the nature of delusion, isn't it? If you knew you had deluded yourself, you wouldn't be deluded anymore. quote: But nothing you've just written counters my point in the least. People who are deluded, by definition, don't know that they are deluded. The nature of their particular delusion doesn't matter at all. You are trying to find a technicality to get around a tautology, but that's impossible.
The ONLY way to counter it in situations like we've been discussing is by the double-blind methods percy and I have been harping on about. quote: Bias in can be greatly reduced, but if there is a human element present anywhere in any scientific investigation, there is probably some bias in there somewhere.
quote: That's a pretty good response, but the evidence for prayer that we've been talking about doesn't even come close to the nutritional studies you are talking about. You are arguing with very flimsy anecdote and lots and lots of unchecked bias. In the nutritional studies, we know with pretty good confidence that there is a difference between those who take vitamins and those who don't. With your prayer claims, we don't have any idea if there is a difference or not.
quote: No, no, no, no, no. I have made no assumption regarding any anecdotes that you have brought forth. I am sure that you have had some instances where prayer seems to have worked. Yet again, I will state that looking only at the positives in no way can ever tell you if those positive results are "consistent". Never. Ever. Not ever. Period.
quote: TL, you haven't come remotely close to presenting any evidence in any way that would allow a rational conclusion to be reached. 'Explanations like "God won't be tested by scientific studies" but local yokels can figure it out just by staying aware of what's going on have no rational basis whatsoever.' -Percy "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."- Richard Feynman "Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends! Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!"- Ned Flanders
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: So, the point of living a "life of faith" is to "get results"? ...as in, "get special favors from God"? This may not be what you mean but in the context of the ongoing discussion on the effect of prayer on healing, that is what your above statement seems to imply.
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Well, I guess I'd like a more specific definition of how you define "favors from God." I mean, when I was a believer I viewed the Bible as a source of guidence for how to get along with other people so that everybody's life gets better. I prayed for the wisdom to do the right thing, not so much for God to grant special favors. If, however, you are defining "special favors from God" as healings in response to prayer, are those the "results" of faith of which you speak?
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: I agree, wholeheartedly. The problem is, you aren't currently including in your analysis the 50 times that prayer doesn't work. Not only aren't you counting those times, you actually have no idea how many times prayer does or doesn't work. That is because you are not calculating the statistical chances of something happening (or not) in each instance. Like I said, you haven't presented any data in any form that can allow anyone to make a rational determination of the efficacy of your prayer. Not even remotely close. Edited by nator, : No reason given.
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
In summary you have been using highly improbable events as justifications for your faith and the supernatural. quote: The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Deeply religious people who don't have any doubt at all scare the crap out of me. That's the honest truth. I just don't have any understanding whatsoever of that kind of certainty of belief. I don't have that kind of surety of belief or confidence of my understanding of anything at all. Not a single thing do I think I understand or believe 100%, with no doubts at all. How can I be completely sure, since I am a mere human with human limitations of imagination and intellect and ability to access information? How can anybody be without any doubt, about anything?
quote: Well, damn, I'll have to remember to use that line again. Edited by nator, : No reason given.
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Oh wow. You need to read this essay that my friend wrote a long time ago.
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: As much as I would love to take credit for this phrase, I cannot. I heard it first from Zhimbo, but I don't know if it is his or if he heard it from someone else. I can't ask him, either, because he is currently napping. A long, long night of writing last night for him.
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: OK, now I understand better. That's not so scary. In fact, this makes you and I very similar, since I am an agnostic.
quote: Perhaps the difference is I doubt everything, and I am quite comfortable with such doubts, and you are only comfortable with certain doubts?
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Why do you assume Agnostics "haven't looked hard"?
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nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: YES! YES! YES! 'Explanations like "God won't be tested by scientific studies" but local yokels can figure it out just by staying aware of what's going on have no rational basis whatsoever.' -Percy "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."- Richard Feynman "Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends! Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!"- Ned Flanders
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