The best scientific method (Bayesian form of H-D)

Well here's a couple points where you have deviated from science in your method:1) Why is the Xian God the default God, and the Bible the default religious text for understanding the world? There are other Gods and other texts. How is it anything but arbitrary choice to choose that one cult over others?2) How does your praying prove that it was the Xian God which answered your prayers to help the species you talked about? We'll leave aside the fact that you admit humans actually solved the issue, and assume you are right that their was a connection between prayer and something being corrected.Why could it not have been any number of Gods that stepped in, either in answer to your prayer (not being particular to who you are praying to, rather than the emergency message), or in answer to some other people's prayers (were you the only group praying or caring)?Or why does it involve Divine entities at all? Why could your prayer not be creating life energy which attracts human attention to solve a problem, or perhaps attracting a general "Gaia" lifeforce to produce a result?There are simply too many unsupported assumptions you are making and with very few controls to your experiments.I guess you can boil it down to this, even if you have proven that prayer may work, what makes prayer work?------------------
holmes

You ignored the thrust of my argument.In science you simply cannot set up any hypothesis and claim it is a good one.It appears that your hypothesis is that if the Xian God is real, praying will result in benefits. Again, leaving behind the obvious admission humans actually created the results which you considered benefits, your hypothesis was not linked to any scientific standard of measuring results to support the hypothesis.Just because there were benefits (and this alone is granting a bit to your "experiment") does not mean that you proved that it was because of a divine intervention, or more specifically a Xian divine intervention.Running this experiment with you praying to other Gods, or others praying to other Gods will also not really change anything. I suppose it might make things a bit more suggestive, but the number of plausible explanations for why it might or might not have worked for other deities would remain high.You need to give a much better explanation for the mechanism you are hypothesizing occurs and how you are testing it alone and not a myriad of other phenomenon.

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Science proves nothing, only confirms predictions that makes ideas more plausible.

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This is not how science works at all.

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I sincerely hope that someone who prays out of another religious foundation will challenge me to a test of powers. We should have this data at hand. Do people get better faster when Hindus pray?

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It's interesting that you should ask this. According to buz (in another thread) there is plenty of evidence that pagan gods have granted extremely long life to their adherents. Only buz thinks what really happened is that it was demons posing as gods and inhabiting these peoples bodies.The latest example is a hindu fakir who appears to have gone 10 days without food or water and claims not to have eaten in 40 years.In other, perhaps more scientific, experiments it was discovered that buddhists exhibit more happiness in life than individuals of other faiths. The regions of the brain which process pleasure and well being are much more active (or something like that).Given the rather abundant number of prayers that go unanswered I would start wondering why your prayers for saving some specific species resulted in God's aid while others fail.One particularly odious example might be 9-11. Osama and his cronies were praying for success on their horrific suicide attack. It is likely that many on the ground and on those planes prayed for their failure. According to your theory, Osama had god's favor?------------------
holmes

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All my prayer experiments were done outside of Christianity, testing the integrity and validity of the Bible. I was unambiguously working on the truth behind the idea that the God Jehovah and His team are really out there.

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But you are missing an important middle component... prayer. You have included nothing to suggest that you excluded the possibility that while prayer caused something to happen, it had nothing to do with divine intervention (or specific divine intervention).A person from a very rustic third world country could find a flashlight left behind by explorers. After an amount of nervous prayer he tries the switch and a light comes on. He comes to believe that the switch sends a message to his God of fire who starts a magic fire within this stick that contains light but no real heat (or one he is protected from).This is in fact the theory that he come to and imparts to his tribal members. He has an observation, and a prediction. And yet we can see quite clearly that accurate prediction does not a good theory make.Science is not the process of making up hypothetical situations based on taking any preconcieved notion as true, and if a prediction comes true that theory is thought to be true.This seems to be how you are mishandling the scientific process and your statement...

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Science proves nothing, only confirms predictions that makes ideas more plausible.

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...supports such an idea. This is why I criticized the statement above.Science is based in methodological naturalism which limits theoretical entities that can be applied for explanation, and for very good reason. In addition, occam's razor makes large jumps in hypotheses, like the one you just did, invalid to science.You cannot jump to the largest hypothesis (answered prayers proves God is correct) and say you have found anything.

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So, to get a consistent picture, we have to accept that the real Xian god is Satan, and that therefore the Xian claim to Jehovah/"Jesus"/Holy Spirit as their god is a lie. This makes the Bible, at least, a self-consistent system, the truth of which we can test.

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You missed several other scenarios, not the least of which is that there is neither satan nor God. Prayers may still get answered without divine intervention.Your experiment is too crude to remove other plausible explanations. You are handing us a flashlight and saying you have produced light, so your God of fire must be real.

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The best bet is get a hypothesis from a trustworthy authority. When I trained MS and doctoral students, I made the MS students get their hypotheses from successful scientists or intellectuals.

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??? I am a bit troubled by this. Trustworthy authority means nothing, unless you have shown that their methodology is worthy to be trusted. It is their critical thinking, followed by supportive evidence, which determines authority... which in essence boils down to trustworthy experiment, no matter the author.

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H-D science nevers proves anything beyond that statement that a given idea has been proven plausible beyond reasonable doubt.

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But that includes the EXCLUSION of other possible factors which could be controlling factors in your experiment. All I have heard you define is prayer, and result. The mechanism has not been tested, and only asserted.Witness...

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We prayed for more Condors, and I prayed for more Dickcissels, and we got more, measured as scientifically as we know how. How did God do it?

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If we accept the notion that it was not circumstance, which you have not actually removed from possibility, your question cannot be "how did God do it?", your question must be "how did prayer do it?"Eventually you can build up to evidence that prayer involves and actual link to a divine entity of sorts, but your experiment hardly did that.Again, we are flipping a switch on a stick, is the light that comes on from the God of fire?

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In a judged debate, you would lose points for saying such a thing. I'm a scientist, recognized as a good one, highly successful. This is how I was taught real science worked, how I proceeded, how I succeeded. I'm sorry you fell for whatever you were mis-taught about science, but it's not too late to redeem yourself and change your mind when finally confronted with the real thing, as you are now.

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Ironically, this would also lose points in a debate. While I will not make any grandiose claims about my scientific career I guess I will mention that I never got anything less than an A in any of my science classes, including physical and organic chem, including at the grad level. This tends to suggest I was getting something out of my courses.Now that the pissing contest is over, let's focus on the detail. All I was complaining about is that in science successful prediction alone does not lend support to any theory under the sun. There are limits. And it is those limits, more than the success of prediction, that make them scientific.Thankfully it is also those limits which make scientific theories longer lasting predictors, but that does not mean prediction lends scientific credibility to a theory.

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I'd like to see that experiment. However, happiness is a lot more than pleasure and well-being, or neurological states.

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Not sure if I agree with that assessment. If not a neurological state, especially regarding well being, I am unsure what else happiness could be. You are correct that it can be artificially produced, and those chemicals have lasting ill effects, but that does not remove the fact that at the moment people are happy... and if that feeling comes from natural sources then it is a real happiness.In the experiment, brain activity is watched as subjects think of various events (good, bad,neutral). Those who meditate, show much more activity in the positive emotion centers of their brain, even when recalling bad events. Apparently, Buddhists show this even more than other people who meditate (praying to God for example).

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Do we have any confirmation that spiritual beings are out there? and How do we interact with them to get the most out of life?

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Neither of these have been made plausible as explanations, by the nature of your experiment. At best you have that humans entering certain states, might have caused physical results without direct physical intervention.

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I wonder how many pornography businesses were carried out from those towers. Also, He never has been all that crazy about any towers, especially very high towers dedicated to dollars or money, the love of which is the "root of all evil."

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What if I told you that there were absolutely no porn businesses detroyed during 9-11 (maps of the area are available by the way)? In addition courts of justice were destroyed, as well as records meaning many criminals may end up going unpunished, and the victims receiving no retribution. There were also some areas that could be construed as having religious significance?Doesn't that change just about everything you are saying?In addition there were absolutely no porn businesses in the pentagon, or in a field in PA. However there were many truly faithful individuals, unless we are to take the idea that all that died must have been guilty.You said at the outset that there is God or there is Satan. If Xians really believe their God is capable of aiding a madman's prayers to kill 1000's of innocent people, or perhaps condemns those who died as unworthy... most of them servicemen such as police and firemen trying to rescue others... and more interestingly the iconic Xian priest Father Judge who delivers last rights to fallen firemen, while trying to do his sacred duty... then I say data is sufficiently racking up on the Satan side of the equation.I really meant the Osama issue to be a reductio, and had no idea you'd accept your God capable of supporting such atrocity. If you accept that, then is your explanation of the failed prayers of faithful Jews during the Holocaust and Soviet purges, due to their not accepting Christ as their savior?Well actually that would make no sense as Stalin and Hitler sure never kept any commandments, and Osama doesn't think Christ is really the son of God.Yeah... Satan looks like a good bet.

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holmes

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First, there has existed for a long time what we scientists would call the orthodox theology hypothesis, which many intelligent persons find a priori plausible. They derive this prior plausibility in part from what they view as trustworthy authorities, persons whose lives and manners suggest that they know something worth believing, and that their beliefs are generally producing wise decisions.

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I'm not about to debate intelligence. One of the most intelligent people I ever knew got suckered into ID Theory, and has since lost all reason when it comes to that topic.So the issue I am going to address, especially with this OT hypothesis, is gullibility.I should probably state at the outset that I am not one of these dogmatists you are describing. While I tend to think there is one absolute reality, I realize I could be wrong, or that the real universe might have changing laws. Who knows?However, we are beings stuck in certain perspective niches... that is we have a limited access to the world around us, and cannot immediately sense, or know everything.Thus our best bet is to develop strategies to weed out methodologies which are prone to error. Trusting in Authority is a pretty big error. While one might tend to listen to their words first, because of a habit of being right, everything they say must come under the same scrutiny as the raving looney.And then careful analysis of those words must follow some strict methodologies.I do not remove out of turn, the possibility that there may be forces currently beyond our perceptive capabilities. There may even be intelligent forces we call deities.But any theory which involves this type of thing has to be approached with exacting measures, or one is prone to being duped.Many people feel quite satisfied with the results of Tarot Card readers, and some with the likes of John Edwards (who talks to the dead). How am I to tell the good from the bad, other than to forget any claims to Authority they might have and make sure something else is not going on.I guess I should add an unofficial experiment that I conducted as an undergrad. I bought a tarot deck from a company claiming it had a special kind of deck, which was prayed over (or something like that). I learned tarot and began doing readings. In fact, I taught others what I learned and let them do their own readings.The readings... 100% of the time... came out accurate. It was extremely eerie. It was so fascinating to some that they began trying a Ouija board, though that had no effect. Others were so mortified (it was a Xian affiliated college) that they refused to speak about it ever again. Eventually someone took my cards permanently.Now the deck was given to me from Authorities in that field. And tarot has been around for ages, perhaps older than Xianity in some forms. And the cards worked. Or at least they gave 100% predictions, including readings on past, present, and future events.People like Buz are likely to attribute this to demons. But why am I to believe this over the idea that some beneficial force is helping me. Why should I condemn the cards and the practice as many of my Xian schoolmates protested?Now you say you conducted a prayer experiment. You even tested several ways of praying. But if someone claims you are actually invoking a demon, or using mental energy (as these PEAR people seem to be claiming) how am I to know the difference?Given that human activity actually solved the problem you were praying for, how can I not believe those that suggest it was all coincidence?This is why a tight methodology for examining the mechanism involved, and eliminating other potential mechanisms, is so important.Even if I accept the possibility that there is a God, and that he might answer prayers, I do not find sufficient evidence from your experiment to consider that possibility more plausible than random chance.This could really be tightened up. Why not pray for something which is isolated from other human actions and thoughts? Thus the results would at least be limited to your prayers as a causative factor.You might also use various brain, chemical, and electromagnetic monitoring equipment to see if there are measurable changes to your brain or the environment as prayer is engage in. You could then bring in others to try and find similar connections between act (prayer) and result.

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Not to me, despite all you said about the possible severity of Jehovah. I'm not about to judge Jehovah for how he thinks, or for who He allows to be killed in the line of duty.

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But then how are we to judge any actions as right or wrong? Or divine entities who grant us power Good or Evil?This sets us up for massive exploitation at the hands of a malign power (if higher powers are real), or malign human "authorities" (if they are real or not).If deception is the tool of malign beings, isn't an unquestioning acceptance of atrocities one of the greatest tools a malign entity could hope to wield against humanity and Good?I for one do feel the power to judge better and worse, or beneficial and malign. At least in the most extreme actions. Mass slaughter is "worse". It is "malign". Any entity which calls or supports an act against life, especially innocent life, is malign.Any person claiming that they must do such things for their deity, is malign and should be fought. If that is the nature of his/her deity then that deity must be fought.But maybe that makes me evil. My being against wholesale slaughter of innocent beings is evil. My being against blindly following orders that call for the detruction of innocents makes me evil.Mmmmhmmmm. What then is the definition of Satan and deceit to you? What is good?I honestly cannot tell what is the line between God and Satan, if "Good" supports Osama, Stalin, and Hitler, and blames their victims.I guess I'd like to end on this question (I just thought of it so edited it in): If humans are made in God's image, and what we do to ourselves is representative of what we do to him, then shouldn't we be able to judge if Satan or God is calling us to any particular action based on how humane the request is? And in that way avoid being fooled?[This message has been edited by holmes, 01-02-2004]

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Note how OT presents the evil genius problem.

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Actually there are three separate problems...1) While the OT might be correct, it might also be incorrect, even with some predictions under its belt. I suppose this is the difference between most scientific theories and religious based theories. Newton's theories had a way to be made false, and while OT is given a way to succeed in your method, I have not actually seen a way for it to fail... ever. You can simply chalk it not working in some instances as not having prayed right. Or obvious human action as a result of God's use of humans to fulfill the prayer.This point though, is not its falsifiability, but rather that if it is not correct human agents may still appeal to it and use it to their own ends. A Human evil genius.2) If it is true, then there is the possibility of the evil genius... I guess in this case satan.3) And finally even if true, there is still the possibility of humans can appeal to it and act as an evil genius.Thus the OT's credibility actually presents three different evil scenarios. Although it might be better to term them "gullibility" scenarios. It presents leverage for an opponent to fool one into making mistakes.

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The Creator has provided a written guide (the Bible) on how to interact with Him, to overcome, epistemologically, the "evil genius." This Bible warns us that the evil genius will mostly try to deceive us through something called religion, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which will always be with us, to choose or reject.

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Since there is no question that the Bible as we know it is a compilation of religious writings which have included and excluded texts from that time, and done so in order to promote a religion, how was Satan incapable of messing with it. The Bible seems to fit your description of how Satan would seek to deceive us to a "T".

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Well, Witztum's bible codes studies are powerful, really putting OT beyond reasonable doubt. But they are only science.

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I don't want to address bible code in this thread. I don't think we have to in order to address prayer studies. If you think it's necessary then fine, but I think it raises all sorts of other issues and will detract from our current discussion.That said, I will state that I think the bible code is pretty much garbage. It is intriguing, but points to nothing... especially beyond a reasonable doubt. But as I said, I think prayer studies rise or fall separate from that.

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Epistemologically, once we grant that OT could be true, we are obliged to follow, for the sake of testing, it's demands to see if our life improves, to see if we prosper. Otherwise, we might be under the sway of the evil genius, deceived.

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There are several problems with the above argument. First of all this would then apply to every kind of religion, not just Xtianity.Second, as far as other religions go, I have already shown that there have been benefits to other religious practices. Buz acknowledges this and blames them on demons... which leads to the third problem.Third, Satan gives out prosperity if it serves his purpose of turning people away from God. If anything prosperity would have to be, after unquestioned obedience, one of his best lures.

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As God presents Himself in Scripture, He says that He never creates victims. He says that He has always given everyone a way out of every trauma, abuse, horror, a way to overcome evil with good.

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Job.

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He makes it clear that we are in a war, and some suffering is the lot of everyone. Suffering that generates good is not to be regretted. Witness the suffering of women in childbirth.

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This can be used by any human or divine evil genius. Who is to be arbiter of what is "good" so as to judge the effects of a war? Isn't the tree of knowledge which grants such insight deceptive? That is the first thing Satan handed man. And we immediately judged how god made us as bad. But we are supposed to then be able to judge whether an end is good enough to kill mass numbers of people?This seems horribly inconsistent. It is one of the reasons that I believe the Amish are some of the few true Xians around. They certainly have foiled any evil genius from using them to suit his ends. Without killing, they survive.

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holmes

While the language used may seem a bit off, I think we are still on course for the main topic. He was presenting his "best" scientific method and at this point I am working over a piece of that method. I guess we are dealing more with the moral than science implications of that piece, but its hard to disentangle the two when the scientific method is worshipping God.At least that's the way I see it.

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holmes

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For example, it is fairly clear in Scripture that anyone calling themselves Christian, or who says that they "go to church", who every uses the term "my church" or "kids" is a tare, a false "believer" a son of Satan, a liar, doomed to Hell.

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Unfortunately this is saying most Xians are wrong, which is a bit of a hard sell. Maybe not to me but to them, and you'll have to deal with their arguments on your particular theory.Frankly I'd love to see this idea get around so as to remove discussion of religion and piety from holders of public office.This said, I do not think it is self-evident from scripture that Satan is perfectly leashed at all. He has managed to upset God, which means good can be corrupted.

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Job proves the above point most clearly.

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Uhmmmm. While I agree Job does show the point in this last post, it was a perfect counterexample to what you stated in your previous post. God does not always forewarn anyone, and sometimes there is absolutely no way out of calamity.Sometimes God will wager with Satan on how you will endure unjust suffering which he allows to happen. A very disturbing concept.And keeping it on the issue of science, who can say whether God and Satan are wagering again, whether humans will understand the world God created through the means God gave us, or believe a book of religious writings compiled by men (some of whom may have been corrupt and mixed truth with falsehood)?What's worse this seems to all keep coming down to me having to believe you are actually talking to God in order to get "data". If it were strictly prayer=result, there may be something, but it seems tied in with your contacts outside the experiment as well. Like maybe there was an inconsistency, but you talked with God and got his answer. How am I supposed to believe you over someone else saying the same thing (but giving a different explanation)?This is where you can see how the scientific method developed an exclusion of data that can only be reproduced by one person.

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The Amish are vulnerable to invasions from evil war-liking marauders.

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If God always protects those who follow his commandments, how can his most faithful be vulnerable to anyone? This clearly counters what you said earlier that God always grants the faithful a way out of peril.As far as I can tell the worst that will happen is that a few get killed and they move on to the next area to live.If they can be overrun by the unfaithful because they do not practice war, what good is God? Or exactly how powerful is he?I hate to say this... because you seem pretty nice... but the gap in your method's armor is pretty visible at this point.

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holmes

I kind of wish you had picked something else to address in my post than just that one paragraph. But given lemons...

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If the Amish talk to God, He will keep them out of trouble, just as He would have kept Job out of trouble, if Job had bothered to deal with Him face to face.

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The first part of that sentence contradicts your last post where you said their peaceful ways make them vulnerable to invasion. I am now totally unclear as to what your stance is. It has become almost purely ad hoc reasoning.The second sentence contradicts the Bible. God was not about to help Job out at all. That was the bet God had made with Satan; a very devout person would be left to the devices of Satan and suffer unjustly and without possible aid, to see if he would give up God. Unless you are saying God would make a bet and then cheat? I suppose that makes sense when God had to cheat while wrestling with an ordinary man, but it just makes him that much less compelling.

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Ask God yourself. It's the whole point of the Bible, to hearken to His voice, to settle all matters.

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This completely avoids the issue raised in my summary statement. Someone could just as easily say "Ask Vishnu" or "Ask Zeus" or "Ask Satan". I have no way of separating one from the other, exept for your assertion. By the way I have tried talking to God and received nothing. I guess that means I did it wrong then huh? Boy that was pretty convenient.Science is much much harder. You can't just say if it didn't work for you you did it wrong, your methods must be carefully explained so that others can follow it, thus reproducing the experiment.You seem like a nice guy, but I have to say you are not being scientific in your approach to science.

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holmes

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Actually, science began as a search for knowledge. It just turned out that naturalism gave the best results in virtually all areas of study.

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Actually, you are both correct. Science did begin as "natural philosophy". That did not mean naturalist philosophy, it meant the philosophy (or seeking knowledge) of the natural world (what we see around us).Natural philosophy included many extraneous (non-naturalist) concepts until the methods of studying nature became refined into methodological naturalism.I still wish science was known as natural philosophy. The division between the two has left philosophers feeling like they shouldn't be active in researching the real world, and scientists feeling like they study the truth and don't have to understand the philosophy behind their pursuit of knowledge. That's bad business for both.

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holmes

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Now, it confirms the idea that the bible is a supernaturally written document guiding lesser, created beings, when any effort to see if those guidelines produce a good fruitful life succeeds.

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This seems a little stretched. There are many cultures, including small, basically agrarian based communities which have no connection to Xianity. Does this confirm the idea that their holy texts or beliefs are correct?

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Now, their dogmatic pacifist stand is also unbiblical. Yeshua told his maturer disciples to carry a sword.

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Pacifism, unbiblical? I do not remember Jesus picking up arms and telling people "if a person smacks you on the cheek, smite him on the other."While there may have been instances where the sword was encouraged, but there was a lot more encouragement (at least in the NT) for beating them into plowshares or some such thing. I think this cuts them a little slack.But your discussion of the Amish only brings out the problems in your reasoning. First you say their success indicates something, then slip in that maybe something bad could happen to them and if it does you have an answer in the Bible for that too. Yet it is left open that if nothing bad happens to them, there is a Biblical answer for that. Thus anything that happens to the Amish is evidence of some kind.

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All consistent with the Bible, as a supernatural document. You have to hear God, even if only in the form of a prophet, and repent with fruits appropriate to your repentance, and He will save you. Or so it is written.

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??? You gave hearsay, speculation, and assertion and then sum it up by saying that this is consistent with the Bible as a supernatural document? This does not seem like a very well put together argument.

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Now, ad hoc reasoning has a place in the Lakatosian Research Programmes, and is useful if protected by deductive predictions.

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Homina homina homina. I am unsure how ad hoc reasoning is useful to these people you mention, but ad hoc reasoning is absolutely no good in presenting an argument. It shows a specific lack of understanding of your own position and how logic connects the propositions which make it up.

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But, if Job had come running into His presence at the beginning, God might well have changed His mind and told Satan to get lost. After all, it appears that was what God wanted after all, and as soon as He got it, He stopped the test. Note that, in the beginning, Satan was coming around, but not Job. If Job had been there at the meeting, he might have stopped the whole thing short.

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This has me thinking you are just jerking my chain. This is not the common interpretation of Job, and if it is it steals away the whole message of Job.Job was described as pious, not as someone shirking his duty. You are suggesting he was supposed to be following God around to everywhere God exists on the off chance God would make a bet with the devil?Even more intriguing is you forget about all the other pious innocents who were slaughtered unjustly, in order for the devil to get at Job. Or are you saying that if they had come to God then they would have been spared and thus deprive the devil the ability to test Job?This is truly an example of terrible ad hoc reasoning. You have changed the actual and obvious message of a passage in the Bible, in order to try and hang on to your earlier statement, and in order to get out of the new fix you put your interpretation into you'll have to alter it again.

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My assertion is that if you do ask, part of the request is for Jehovah to make it clear that it is He, not Vishu or Zeus that is speaking.

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This avoids the main issue, that anyone of another faith can say the same thing. Are you saying when it works... even if for another faith... that confirms that religion? Or does this only count for your God?

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Just keep asking, "Was that You? How can I know?" All your years of experience have taught you, I think, that this approach is the way the world is, the way evidently it was created to be. Slow and steady wins the race.

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This is not what years of experience have taught me at all. While slow and steady is good for progress, stacking the deck and biasing my research from the outset is not.You are asking me to take an a priori position with regards to what the results of my experience will be and judge evidence only with that outcome in mind.

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Just remember: the bottom line of scripture is hearkening to His voice to keep and do His commandments.

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So what is the bottom line of science? That is supposedly what this thread is about, yet it consistently veers into attempts at conversion.If I must convert in order to get to your method, that means I must agree with the results in order to see them. This is not good science.

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holmes

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"If you do X, you will get Y." then that confirms that someone very wise wrote the text, and its ontological statements ("This is the way the universe is put together.") more credible.

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Then there are many other confirmations, not the least of which is the Church of Scientology. Sure some people don't have success, but then it is explained that they weren't doing things exactly right. But those who do... well just look at the stars making lots of money and feeling very good about life.It is not like other religions have not been studied before, and that no other religion has led to prosperity for its people... or as I may view it prosperity came to a people that happened to have a certain religion.

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Yes, anything that happens to the Amish is evidence of some kind, either for or against the credibility of the Bible.

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I hope this is simply a misunderstanding of what I wrote. What I was saying is that you have created a situation so that whether good or bad befalls the Amish, it is evidence for the credibility of the Bible.While you say bad is predicted, good is predicted until the bad happens. And so any good is a sign the Bible is right, and cannot conflict because the bad can always happen later. This is a nonexperiment.

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Ad hoc reasoning is useful in the following scenario.

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Once again I hope this was a misunderstanding. I fully understood how ad hoc reasoning can help develop a theory, through theorizing and testing. My criticism... and it still stands... is that ad hoc reasoning is not useful when it comes time to explain the results of your experiments to others. When questioned about implications of your experiment (and the theory supported), you appear to be shifting to new stands on issues. That indicates your theory and experiments were not complete or well thought out.Unless you are saying here that you are trying to build a theory in this thread, and not explain one that has been supported by evidence?

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The common interpretation of the Bible steals away its message, and this is intentional and predicted by the bible.

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If I talked with some of these Code guys... which I can because apparently some of these scholars live (or gather) a few blocks from me... they are going to tell me that the message of Job is that he should have gotten to God first, and so everyone needs to make sure they stick with God or he might allow the Devil to play with them?If they say your interpretation is wrong, does that make them washed up in your eyes?I am a left rather stunned at your religion. You are saying that you talk to some entity that you found kind of repulsive (in another thread), and that through him you have learned that the Bible doesn't say anything people think it says? I would be more inclined to believe someone saying you were being possessed, or tricked by the Devil, then that you are actually speaking to a God.

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But the devil's slaughter of these others was not unjust. Technically, these people were the devil's property, much as a steer might be your property.

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This appears to be pure assertion. Why are they the devil's property? Because that would make the story more consistent to your interpretation?

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Moreover, when the prophets asked Jehovah what happened to Job's children, they got this response. Everything else Job lost was restored to him two fold, but not his children. Because, although they died prematurely, they lived on in heaven, where it matters.

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I honestly do not remember this, but I could be wrong. Where was this stated?

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(It is the glory of God to conceal a matter. It is the glory of kings to search out a matter.) So, the bible remains confirmed.

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Once again, the criteria of proof is that the Bible will produce good until it produces bad, but that is also evidence the Bible is right.If I asked the Amish and the Swiss what the message of Job was, would they give me your interpretation?

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If you convert, but fail to see those outcomes, you can un-convert.

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But the process of conversion you described precludes my not seeing any lack of outcomes. Either I have not done something right, or if anything happens I have to see (or ask) how it may be God's handiwork.This is a formula for credulity and not inspection. [quote]I don't really see any other honorable way to approach the creation/evolution question scientifically. The creationist hypothesis, as extracted from the Bible, demands that it be tested this way.{/quoteI do. It is both honorable and honest to examine the simple mechanics of how things work and slowly develop an understanding of these mechanics. Using this knowledge expand our research further until we can obtain a picture of how those mechanics might, or might not have come to result in life (or other natural phenomenon). If a deity becomes part of the picture then fine, but not before it is needed.You appear to want to skip the small, slow steps to understanding life and jump to "if prayer works, God is there and we have our answer." IMO this is less than honest or honorable.I can understand your method as trying to bring some scientific technique into how you practice your faith. That's fine. Well... it's not fine by everyone, but I don't necessarily see a problem with that.However, you cannot bring your faith into science and say everyone must accept this faith and test it according to my paradigm or you are not being honorable. That is exactly how science DOES NOT WORK. Scientists are focused on edges and pieces of individual natural phenomona, not testing the grandscale. Some may result in changing the ultimate paradigm, but that is when an individual piece results in inconsistencies which must be explained.Now you may want to say "Fine, I was testing prayer (as a natural phenomena) and I prayed and results happened. Explain that." To which I ask "what were your results?" And then everything stops dead the moment you say "God had these people help..."If you are going to investigate prayer, you are going to have to use proper scientific technique and take things slowly. Piece by piece. Build your evidence. First what is prayer, then what happens during prayer, then what is the apparent connection between prayer and the focus of prayer, then what is the mechanism between the prayer and the focus of prayer?Just as you state that the Bible is not open to individual interpretation, neither is the scientific process. The evidence contained in this thread seems to be supporting that latter conclusion nicely.

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holmes

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Let's say there are two commandments, one promising reward X if obeyed, the other Y. There is also X' punishment for disobeying commandment 1, and Y' punishment for disobeying commandment 2. Group A keeps commandment 1, but disobeys commandment 2. Group B reverses this pattern. So we predict A manifests reward X, and punishment Y'. Group B gets reward Y and punishment X'. We watch their histories, and see the predicted pattern of rewards and punishments. The wisdom of the source of the commandments is confirmed scientifically. Right?

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No. Or at least not as vaguely as described above, or as you have stated in your specific examples.The same experiment can be run for tarot and palm readers, and almost consistently across the board come up with success. This may be shown when a con artist who understands the game reveals the secret.In order to be scientific your experiment must have:1) Well defined outcomes at the beginning... in all of your examples so far there is no definite anything except that something "good" happens. or something "bad" happens. Good and bad things happen to everything in time, and can change of course based on perspective and yet more time (for example a nation is driven out of their country by invasion, yet decades later ends up in a better area to live).2) Well defined mechanisms... There must be some explanatory mechanism for what is happening, beyond "whatever happens it is Gods influence". At the very least SOMETHING must be excluded from the set of mechanisms so we know if that is the observed cause, the experiment has failed. One HUMONGOUS reason to exclude an observed mechanism is direct human intervention.3) Well defined area of time for results... Watching history is terrible. Good and Bad things happen to everything, especially given "history" as the timescale. A better correlation between action and result is necessary, otherwise the result could be the outcome of all the other actions which happened in that interval.4) Isolation and Control... Your experimental groups need to be isolated as much as they can be from outside factors. For example who knows if the downfall of tribe A is the result of their not appeasing their God properly, or the fact that their God never existed, and it was tribe B's actions of worshipping a true God (and recently wishing A's downfall) which led to A's demise. You also need a Control group where nothing is done and see that neither harm nor good things happen (or have some prediction of what should happen given their neutrality).

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But, as a naturalist, I liked the coherence between biblical and evolutionary fitness. Both rewarded with similar rewards, at least in the natural: love, children, peace of mind, happiness, freedom, lack of interest in fame, money, political power, egotistical stuff, keep up with Jones's type stuff.

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This pretty well describes all religions doesn't it? Well, except for that freedom bit.In a relative sense, Buddhism and Taoism appear to concentrate more on all of the above than Xianity does. Maybe you ought to give them a shot.

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holmes

I am confused it seems. From the title of this thread I thought this was about examining a new (the best) scientific method. That is you had found a better way of examining evidence and had used it with success and were discussing it. This is why my criticisms have focused on weaknesses in the methodology being outlined.

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and in this case, we are scientifically trying to know a Person who is defined as being infinitely complex.

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The above statement appears to suggest, the real intent is not to discuss what the best scientific method is in general, but what the best scientific method is for trying to know certain Supernatural entities.

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Your experimental constraints are good where possible, but certainly not essential. Or was the measurement of light bending around the eclipsed sun bad science?

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I am unaware what experiment you are talking about, but I am intrigued. I would like to know more, specifically with respect to deviations from the methods I have described.

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Does my failure to know and confirm these mechanisms weaken the effect of prayer experiments, or historical correlations, on the plausibility of the hypothesis that He is, indeed, out there. Yeah, sure, but who cares?

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Scientists do. That is the difference between anecdotal personal experience (which might be true but is unable to be reproduced/understood by others), and science (which is the process of accumulating knowledge in a way which allows anyone to reproduce and understand).

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That plausibility has so many different boosts from other studies, that it hardly needs the historical correlations. They mostly help in understanding how it all matters.

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I keep hearing grand claims regarding amounts of evidence, but have seen none yet.

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But, anyway, my choice, which has certainly been confirmed to me to be a good one, is to do science this non-dogmatic way.

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How is assuming nothing at the outset, and developing careful methods so as to preclude an investigator's biases on a subject from influencing research, dogmatic?It would seem that requiring biases be held at the outset, used to guide collection of data, and not setting limits on good/bad data, is a bit more dogmatic... especially if the reason is to be able to understand a specific Supernatural entity.I have no problem with the idea that you want to introduce some scientific research concepts into your faith. It is between you and your Xian brethren, whether science should be mixed with your faith.However, your faith cannot be artificially introduced into everyone's science, or the result is bad science. This has been shown enough in history (quite conclusively) which is why we have the process we have now. It is not dogmatic, it is simply a process. If science was dogmatic we'd still have the same theories we started with, and the technique would not have developed.If your technique is adopted then it appears many conflicting faiths have been proven. This just does not make sense.I am also curious why you are so negative regarding my suggestions for improving your methods. If you are right then there should be no problem, right? You appear to be arguing from a position of knowledge that if held to tighter controls, everything will fall apart.[This message has been edited by holmes, 01-08-2004]

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First, can you state, out loud to yourself or to someone you care about, that you choose with whatever free will you have, to search for the truth by examining ideas with plausibilities ranging from above zero to below one?

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Uh, yeah. I'm not going to go through a long list of all sorts of things I've tried, as if that proves anything... after all you can always claim I must not have done them right (or if they are not Xian that they never would).My scepticism is always overcome by my curiosity, when it comes to trying new things out. However my intellectual honesty is never overcome by my gullibility.Methodological Naturalism is the best way to ensure that results are uninfluenced by personal bias and that data is tightly correlated to what is under study.Are you claiming this is not true?

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Second, you state ... "I keep hearing grand claims regarding amounts of evidence, but have seen none yet."... Where have you looked?

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Uhm, I was actually saying I saw none in your posts, despite your claims. But as I said above, I have my own experience that other methodologies don't work, and most supernatural theories that demand we depart from MN aren't real.Ever watched Penn&Teller's show Bullshit! ? How about stuff by the Amazing Randi? Ever read the Skeptical Inquirer? How about the debunking work of Harry Houdini?

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Free will trumps every other human concern. If that's your choice, and it will be unless you state otherwise, we're done here.

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I don't know what this means. What does free will have to do with anything? I am completely agnostic on that subject.I do get that--- for humans--- absolute truth will probably never be known. But that does not mean that a very good methodology for testing possible truths, so as to judge what is most useful and probable, cannot be developed.You seem to be stating that we must accept every theory, and more problematic to me any methodology in order to make every theory yet more credible.I have yet to see you explain why using the tightest methodology is something bad. It does not exclude any theory, only excluding experiments that involve biased judgement of data. You might complain that this hurts some theories, but if they are real it cannot possibly destroy them. The worst MN can do is stretch out the time to collect definitive data.Why is this upsetting?

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holmes

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Yes, it's not true. It's basically inductive, tied too tightly to existing paradigms and mind-sets about reality.

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I'm sorry... what paradigms and mindsets about reality is MN tied to? The only thing I am aware it does is exclude methods that from experience have led to incorrect conclusions because of the acceptance of researcher bias, and loose data-subject correlation.

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There is nothing wrong with the protocols you suggest, only something wrong with saying that because they exist, others that are weaker are wrong. The weaker methods take you places the strong ones cannot, just more slowly than if you were able to use the strong ones.

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I didn't say the others were wrong. I only said that MN was the best, since it makes knowledge a harder club to get into.If a theory is correct then MN cannot NOT take you there eventually, it will just be slower. The problem with the weaker methods is that you often end up in wrong places much faster, and unable to discern which is the way back to the right place.It's all about not being taken for a chump. I'd rather use MN and have to hold off on statements of knowledge, than pretend the palmreader knows all until it can be proven wrong.

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That's how I settled on H-D science, in spite of the fact that, though approved by the majority of philosophers of science, scientists in general do not like H-D scientists.

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I think this is a bogus claim. Give me the stats that the majority of philosophers of science have rejected MN and turned over to this H-D thing. Or do I have to take this on faith as well?By the way, scientists are practicing philosophers of science.

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But, my science was successful.

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And so is mine. And so is mine. Oh yeah, and mine too. Boy this sure is easy. Reduce all criticism to not understanding true science, and you get to keep the claim that your science is successful.I am wondering how anyone's science ever ends up unsuccessful.

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holmes