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Author Topic:   Science: A Method not a Source
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 36 of 177 (589056)
10-30-2010 3:36 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Jon
10-29-2010 10:49 AM


Re: The Bible and the Scientific Method
This young man, in his search for knowledge, has investigated the only thing he has the means for investigating and has come to a tentative conclusion that is based only on the evidence available and requires as few assumptions as possible.
But it doesn't require as few assumptions as possible. Because it requires a unknown, hypothetical, unevidenced way for people to come into being apart from having parents in the normal way.
A more parsimonious explanation involves the young man having a much longer lineage plus the known fact that people do not preserve and pass on every memory of their ancestors.
The result of rejecting these (obviously rejectable) consequences is that we must accept that histories, such as the Bible, constitute evidence and that their use in discovering truths about the world qualifies as scientific.
Sure, every story is evidence for something.
But the question is, of what? Are the Sherlock Holmes stories evidence of Sherlock Holmes, or evidence that Arthur Conan Doyle needed the money?
Does use of the Bible and other histories represent an appropriate application of these methodologies?
Use how?
With every story, whether it be the Sherlock Holmes stories, Aesop's fables, or the Popol Vuh, there are questions we have to ask such as:
* Who wrote it?
* Why? Did they intend it as fact, fable, fiction, a downright lie?
* If they intended it as fact, why did they think so? What were their sources?
* Is there any corroborating evidence?
* Is the story intrinsically plausible? (e.g. even without being able to check the first four items, I would doubt any story about a man sailing to the edge of the world, because it doesn't have one).
These are questions that we have to ask before we can start using the story as evidence for anything except that people tell stories.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 43 of 177 (589151)
10-30-2010 8:20 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by Jon
10-30-2010 4:26 PM


Re: The Bible and the Scientific Method
Who said anything about Biblical literalism?
Well, if we were going to regard the Bible, or parts of the Bible, as fictions, lies, or spiritual allegories, then what's to become of their evidential value? Those parts of the bible would definitely be evidence of the mind-set of certain Jews rather than of history.
It is only those parts that we consider as at least intended to be literal and accurate that we can even begin to consider as potential evidence for what actually happened.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 53 of 177 (589226)
10-31-2010 9:19 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by Jon
10-30-2010 11:10 PM


Re: The Bible and the Scientific Method
I am not sure I see how this conflicts with the young man described in the OP, or my comments about him in later posts of this thread. Perhaps you could help me by pointing out where the poor lad failed to do what you say he failed to do.
I thought my post explained it quite well.
There are (at least) two explanations for his observations. One involves a known, observable process, the other involves an unknown, unobserved process. He jumped to the conclusion that he should explain his observations by the means of the latter and not the former. This is unscientific.

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 Message 44 by Jon, posted 10-30-2010 11:10 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 55 by Jon, posted 11-01-2010 12:16 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 56 of 177 (589237)
11-01-2010 12:26 AM
Reply to: Message 55 by Jon
11-01-2010 12:16 AM


Re: The Bible and the Scientific Method
Huh? If your parents tell you their family history back to four great grandparents, why should you not, lacking any other forms of evidence, tentatively conclude that humanity has existed at least as far back as your first ancestor?
At least, yes.
But he then goes on to use the same data to set an upper limit. I quote:
So, my additional evidence tells me that the human race is a little older than five human generations: about six. So, using only the evidence I have at my disposal, and making as few assumptions as possible, I can conclude that humans have been around for about six generations, or 300 years.

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 Message 55 by Jon, posted 11-01-2010 12:16 AM Jon has replied

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 61 of 177 (589263)
11-01-2010 10:32 AM
Reply to: Message 59 by Jon
11-01-2010 9:36 AM


Re: The Bible and the Scientific Method
And if he says his conclusion is 'tentative', doesn't that make his choice of using at least, about, or at most in its wording irrelevant?
Not really. All conclusions are "tentative" in the technical sense. That doesn't excuse conclusions that are wrong because they exceed the evidence or ignore it.
I think we may be too quick to jump and say he must come to a conclusion that includes our current figure, but that's certainly just our own bias, no?
I'm not sure how he would arrive at "our current figure". Only that he has no basis for dating the origin of the human race as contemporaneous with the first person anyone he can find can remember.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by Jon, posted 11-01-2010 9:36 AM Jon has replied

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 75 of 177 (589322)
11-01-2010 5:17 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Jon
11-01-2010 11:17 AM


Re: The Bible and the Scientific Method
This has me confused. What evidence did the lad have (as discussed in the OP) that he ignored or from which drew too strict a conclusion?
He knows (I presume) how people originate and how memories originate.
Okay, then why must he place a lower limit? How is failing to place a lower limit wrong by way of exceeding or ignoring evidence?
Because any other hypothesis violates parsimony. When he finds that his grandfather remembers his grandfather, he can either suppose that he himself did, in fact, have a great-great-grandfather, or he can formulate some sort of omphalic hypothesis that involving his grandfather falling out of a hole in the sky and acquiring a set of false grandparental memories as he did so.
Now, this would ignore the facts, known to him, about how people are born and how memories are formed.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Jon, posted 11-01-2010 11:17 AM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 77 by Jon, posted 11-01-2010 6:13 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 78 of 177 (589336)
11-01-2010 6:55 PM
Reply to: Message 77 by Jon
11-01-2010 6:13 PM


Re: The Bible and the Scientific Method
You can tack a lower limit on if you'd like. As I already mentioned, though, doing so is quite pointless as it does not change the tentativity of the conclusion.
I'm not sure I'm following you.
Nothing changes the "tentativity" (in the philosophical sense) of any conclusion. The proposition that pigs don't have wings is tentative --- but it is still to be preferred to the contrary proposition.

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 Message 77 by Jon, posted 11-01-2010 6:13 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 80 of 177 (589347)
11-01-2010 7:44 PM
Reply to: Message 79 by Jon
11-01-2010 7:32 PM


Re: The Bible and the Scientific Method
I already said you could add it.
And now you've definitely lost me completely.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 93 of 177 (589651)
11-03-2010 5:17 PM
Reply to: Message 92 by jar
11-03-2010 4:53 PM


Re: Testing BY Prediction
I would go so far as to say that as an example, the Aztec belief that without sacrifice the world would end was both reasonable and logical, and that to test the null hypothesis, not perform the rites and risk the world coming to an end would be the illogical, unreasonable and irresponsible behavior.
See also Livingstone's Conversations on Rain-Making:
Livingstone: God alone can command the clouds. Only try and wait patiently; God will give us rain without your medicines.
Rain doctor: Mahala-ma-kapa-a-a!! Well, I always thought white men were wise till this morning. Who ever thought of making trial of starvation?

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 97 of 177 (589689)
11-03-2010 8:24 PM
Reply to: Message 95 by Jon
11-03-2010 6:03 PM


Re: It's Simple... Really (Re: Testing BY Prediction)
I propose that the use of the Bible and other 'historical' literature to generate knowledge about the physical world is not, as many claim, unscientific or (dare I say) 'supernatural', but instead perfectly good science differing only in results (by means of different inputs) from presently accepted knowledge in the overall scientific community. To clarify, I am not addressing specifically the knowledge itself that is so generated, but rather the methodologythat is, the generation of knowledge about the physical world based on the reading of histories.
Well, I think this has already been answered, by myself among others. It is not scientific to uncritically accept what is written in some book as being history, even if it is presented as such.

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 Message 95 by Jon, posted 11-03-2010 6:03 PM Jon has replied

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 100 of 177 (589700)
11-03-2010 9:37 PM
Reply to: Message 99 by Jon
11-03-2010 8:58 PM


No one's advocating uncritical acceptance, though. Where else do we turn lacking any tools for investigating reality in a way that may answer our questions?
But we are not in fact lacking these tools.
It is hard to say what an ideal reasoner, knowing nothing else of the universe, would make of the Bible. But in contemplating this question we might also wonder what it would make of the Popol Vuh, Aesop's Fables, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Peter Pan, the "Hitler diaries" or Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War. How would it tell what was meant as fiction, what was meant as fact but wasn't, what was meant as fact and was, and what was known by its author to be fiction but intended to deceive others into taking it as fact?
But we are not in that unfortunate situation.

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 Message 99 by Jon, posted 11-03-2010 8:58 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 102 of 177 (589712)
11-03-2010 11:36 PM
Reply to: Message 101 by Jon
11-03-2010 11:05 PM


True. However, the matter was: if we lack these tools, how else do we gain knowledge of the world?
It seemed as though you agreed earlier that science is perfectly capable of functioning in the absence of any of these tools (or so it appeared by some of your replies); is it true that this is your position?
We never have to approach any text in a vacuum; and if we did, we wouldn't know what to make of it.

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 Message 101 by Jon, posted 11-03-2010 11:05 PM Jon has replied

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 123 of 177 (589853)
11-04-2010 7:36 PM
Reply to: Message 116 by Jon
11-04-2010 3:20 PM


CMB
If 'vindication' to you is simply failure to be falsified (despite being falsifiable), then so it is; I will not debate on your usage of words. I will say this, however: had both BB and SST predicted the nature of the CMBR as it was discovered, then its discovery would have added nothing to the debate; it was only in as much as the discovery of CMBR was inconsistent with the notions of SST that one theory was able to be 'tossed' while the other be 'vindicated'. It would, thus, appear, that the 'vindication', or 'verification', of theories is not a positive process, but rather a negative one that results when certain of competing (falsifiable) explanations are falsified. The discovery of informations pertaining to certain (falsifiable) predictions seems completely useless if it does not serve to falsify one of a series of competing explanations. Without falsification it is impossible to get anywhere in science.
I disagree. If there had been no such thing as the Steady State Theory, the nature of the CMB would still have been in line with the predictions of the BBT and would have increased out confidence in that theory.
What is needed for an observation to tend to confirm a hypothesis (call it hypothesis A) is not that it should tend to disconfirm another hypothesis (call it hypothesis B), but that it would have tended to disconfirm hypothesis A if we'd seen something different.
E.g. not finding the CMB when we had instruments good enough to detect it had it been there would have cast doubt on the BBT; therefore finding it rendered the BBT more plausible.

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 Message 116 by Jon, posted 11-04-2010 3:20 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 125 of 177 (589860)
11-04-2010 7:52 PM
Reply to: Message 117 by Jon
11-04-2010 3:24 PM


Re: Religious science vs. real science
So you are not aware of the methodology employed in retrieving the young Earth age estimates from the pages of Scripture?
Step 1: Assume without evidence that what is written in some book is completely true ...
At which point they have already left the scientific method far behind.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 117 by Jon, posted 11-04-2010 3:24 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 127 by Jon, posted 11-04-2010 7:57 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 128 of 177 (589867)
11-04-2010 8:12 PM
Reply to: Message 127 by Jon
11-04-2010 7:57 PM


Re: Religious science vs. real science
Are you sure that is really part of the methodology? Are you saying to read through the Scripture and calculate an age of the Earth based on what is written is only possible if you first 'assume without evidence that what is written in some book is completely true'?
Without that assumption one could calculate what the age of the Earth would be if the Bible was completely true. Indeed, I have done so myself.
But that unevidenced assumption that the Bible is completely true is necessary in order to believe that one is calculating the age of the Earth by following that method. Which is where creationists are going wrong.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 127 by Jon, posted 11-04-2010 7:57 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 139 by Jon, posted 11-05-2010 10:36 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
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