My OP was aimed at beliefs in things for which it is claimed that there can be no empirical evidence.
Thanks for the clarification. I presume this would include such things as the existence of alternate universes, or what came before "T=0".
This is the same point I was making with this example. It seems to a be a common argument here at EvC that if we have no physical evidence on which to base any conclusions we should treat all claims equally. This position is obviously logically flawed.
The usual (strawman?) argument involves pink unicorns and the flying spaghetti monster, the issue being that while we cannot absolutely rule them out, there is no rational reason to believe in them.
Here I do not agree.
A complete absence of physical evidence of any kind in relation to a claim, especially if evidence for the claim in question is pro-actively sought, can only ever suggest that the claim is false.
There was a complete absence of evidence of any kind for the existence of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker after the last known specimens had died.
If a scientific theory predicted a certain new particle (for example) and after years of research and a multitude of experiments designed to detect the particle no evidence for the particle was found would we not consider the theory as having been at least possibly falsified and a new theory necessary?
Such as a
graviton? The problem may be that there is evidence, but we don't know how to observe it yet. If we never find a graviton does that mean that gravity does not exist? Or does it mean that we are looking in the wrong place or with the wrong equipment?
In the case of the soul (for example) the complete absence of any empirical basis for such a claim means that the reasons given for belief in such a thing are inherently and demonstrably unreliable. In the absence of physical evidence for such a thing we must conclude that it does not exist.
Can you absolutely prove that pink unicorns do not exist? The only thing I can properly conclude from an absence of evidence for pink unicorns is that there is an absence of evidence for pink unicorns, and nothing more. I can treat the concept of pink unicorns with skeptical agnosticism, I can chose to believe in their existence in spite of an absence of evidence, or I can chose to believe in an absence of existence because of the absence of evidence, but neither of those choices are based on logic or evidence.
Any claim to the contrary and we head back into the realm of invisible pink unicorns once again.
I am highly skeptical about the existence of invisible pink unicorns.
Enjoy.
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