The Antecedent Probability Principle, the Proportional Principle & Carl Sagan

So your rationale is based on the process and not the thing being investigated or explored?Apply what to miracles? The same approach that is applied to string theory? Why? With all things being equal there can be the same process of investigation into miracles as string theory. Just different methods. Can it not?Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.

Miracles have been investigated and so far no evidence of anything supernatural has ever been presented.

All of the above plus the prior history of investigating related problems. For a miracle I'd start by calling James Randi. So far that has prevented a lot of time and money being wasted. After that you use whatever technique is apprpriate. But first you have to catch your miracle in order to gather the evidence for it. Unfortunately, miracles don't seem to want to be caught or even give us a clue that they exist..

Not miraculously, no. Are you saying they have been?

I'm not trying to prove to you miracles exist, even tho I believe they do. We're talking about whats rational or not.What do you consider to be miraculous? The miraculous can cross over into the natural or how else would we be able to know it exists? The SN and the natural are compatable with eachother not incompatable.People die then come back to life sometimes and we don't know why exactly all time time regardless how it happened. How are you defining miraculous?Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.

Actually, there is no evidence of someone really dying and then coming back to life as far as I know. But even if that were true, is there any justification for calling that a miracle and not just "Not yet explained?"It would seem that the reasonable, rational and consistent thing would be to just admit it is unexplained.

Nothing. Yet. Well exactly. But they never have. A miracle would be if the guy that came back to life had been decapitated, burned to a cinder, shot 10 times in the heart etc etc. funny how the uncontroversially dead NEVER come back to life isn't it?

If you're going to talk about rationality it would help to express just what ideas you are comparing - and to be sure that they really are comparable.The OP was about belief in a specific miracle - and individual event.String theory is a theory, not an individual event.So what precisely are the beliefs that you trying to compare ?Only when we know that can we compare the strength with which a belief is held - if it is held at all - and the evidence supporting that belief.

It's ok that you don't know that you don't know the details. But my point is that the exact reason does matter, at least for this discussion.Einstein was working on a problem, but the problem was not evidence based. Unlike the situation with special relativity, there were no unexplained experimental results that compelled Einstein to pursue general relativity. I agree that Einstein's pursuit was always logical, and in hindsight, we must surely agree that the pursuit was worthwhile, but initially the pursuit was logical without being evidence based.Which is my point. And skipping of the details with cursory talk about searches for the truth always being worthwhile doesn't get at the truth. Could you cite any of that evidence? I agree that pursuing string theory is rational, and that string theory guys need to report results, but so far results cannot be about the evidence 'cause there isn't any.

I don't know enough about Einstein and relativity to argue whether his pursuit was evidence based or otherwise, I still say it's irrelevant.The outcome of his work can be tested and whether we accept his results or not IS evidence based. My original point is that we can't accept a claim without evidence. Einstein could have been a nutter rather than a genius who's theory was equivalent to our sponge on a stick man in another thread - he has to be able to prove his theory to others using evidence before it can be accepted. Again so what? I assume that there's enough evidence for the ideas for them to get funding to do the research but that again is irrelevant. For anyone to finally accept the outcome of their work, they will need to provide enough evidence - in whatever form - to convince others with equivalent knowledge that it's true.

It would follow from the above that it would be reasonable to wait for the results to determine whether an activity was rational or not. That does not appear to be the standard you use for pursuits you have already decided are irrational.Alternately we can decide that your personal definition of rationality is such that calling someone irrational might be akin to calling them "Einstein-like"But ultimately, I disagree that the question of whether Einstein's pursuit of relativity was irrational is irrelevant. And I certainly don't agree that your personal lack of knowledge of the details is a valid excuse for ignoring the question.I think it is possible to evaluate whether Einstein's pursuit of general relativity was rational separately from reviewing his results, because we have available the thought experiments and other considerations that motivated Einstein. I find it easy to reach the conclusion that Einstein's pursuit was rational independent of the results, and despite the lack of an evidence based reason for the pursuit.Here is what wikipedia says about Einstein's pursuit:

quote:

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Soon after publishing the special theory of relativity in 1905, Einstein started thinking about how to incorporate gravity into his new relativistic framework. In 1907, beginning with a simple thought experiment involving an observer in free fall, he embarked on what would be an eight-year search for a relativistic theory of gravity. After numerous detours and false starts, his work culminated in the November, 1915 presentation to the Prussian Academy of Science of what are now known as the Einstein field equations. These equations specify how the geometry of space and time is influenced by whatever matter is present, and form the core of Einstein's general theory of relativity.

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Of course you don't know the details. I can accept that, but the implication is that your proposition should not be taken seriously as you have not considered, and are seemingly unwilling to consider some fairly obvious counter examples. Again, there is no evidence that string theory will correctly describe our universe. Your assumption is completely unfounded.And this line of reasoning is bogus anyways. Do you consider the fact that Ron Wyatt could get people to fund a trip to the middle east any kind of persuasive argument that Wyatt found evidence of the Red Sea crossing in Exodus.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

It's not my position that it is necessary to know whether an individual pursuing an interest is behaving rationally or otherwise. (Although I would contend that Einstein was, whilst Sponge on Stick man wasn't.)My point is that when the outcome of those pursuits is a statement about our world, before we can accept it, it must have sufficient evidence to support it. So do I. But so what? It's not my contention that the pursuit of knowledge is always rational. It would be irrational of me to accept that statement without evidence.
My position is that if there was no rational basis for the enquiry into string theory, there would be no funding for it. Moreover, a cursory glance at the 'theory' throws up many reasons why it's a reasonable thing to consider given the evidence, and may indeed have testable outcomes - albeit difficult/contentious. String theory - WikipediaI am not qualified to comment any further on this - I simply do not have the knowledge to contribute and must rely on those that have.

-bold mineCan you give us some of that evidence?Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.

Unevidenced claims is what we are comparing. Is dismissing something like miracles irrational to do because at the moment there is insufficiant evidence to suggest they may occur?Is dismissing string theory at the moment irrational because there is insufficiant evidence to suggest that it is the answer to the universe? Unevidenced ones based on insufficiant evidence. I don't believe it's irrational to investigate miracles when other unevidenced claims are also being investigated.

No, actually it's not really that funny. You don't seem to understand what miracles are. You seem to think they are things that happen in horror movies apperantly.