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Author Topic:   Absence of Evidence..............
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 17 of 138 (467791)
05-24-2008 11:45 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by ICANT
05-24-2008 11:33 AM


ICANT writes:
BTW I stated a fact that when I die I will know if I am right or wrong.
That is not a fact. You do not know whether you will know anything at all when you die.
When you die you will know if you are right or wrong.
How can you know this?
That has nothing to do with what you believe or do not believe, what I believe or do not believe, Pascal's Wager, or any other kind of wager.
As of today the death rate is still 100%.
It has everything to do with what you believe. As of today, the evidence that anyone knows anything after their deaths is absolute 0.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by ICANT, posted 05-24-2008 11:33 AM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by ICANT, posted 05-24-2008 3:24 PM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 23 of 138 (467856)
05-25-2008 12:24 AM
Reply to: Message 18 by ICANT
05-24-2008 3:24 PM


ICANT writes:
bluegenes writes:
That is not a fact. You do not know whether you will know anything at all when you die.
You are partly right. Because if your belief system is correct I will never get the answer.
Not partly right, entirely right. I put the point that you do not know whether or not you will know anything at all when you die. That was not an expression of a belief that you won't know anything, merely that you don't know whether or not you will.
It would be abusing the word "know" to argue against me on that point. No one can claim to know what happens after death, but, of course, religious people of many different hues often claim to know, and they "know" many different things, which is invariably the result of a world in which people will claim "knowledge" based on blind faith, and these people aren't described, as they should be, as mad.

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 Message 18 by ICANT, posted 05-24-2008 3:24 PM ICANT has not replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 24 of 138 (467857)
05-25-2008 12:45 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by RAZD
05-24-2008 7:51 PM


RAZD writes:
Nor does it follow that any concept needs to be considered in equal light (the major fallacy of the "teach both sides" crowd), especially when there are conceivably an infinite number of conjectural possibilities.
When we get beyond the realm of scientific tentatively validated knowledge we enter the realm of basic uncertainty and basic beliefs that may or may not be true. What we can honestly say is that we do not know for sure, except that we currently observe an absence of evidence.
This seems correct. So, when there are "conceivably an infinite number of conjectural possibilities" then believing in any one would, logically, be best described as bloody stupid.
So, when there is zero evidence in any area, it is sensible to lack belief.
Atheism, I must point out here, is the lack of belief in any Gods. It is not, as so many seem to think, a faith that there are not or cannot be Gods.
Belief is active, and there is no point in going through life believing in any evidenceless propositions.

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 Message 21 by RAZD, posted 05-24-2008 7:51 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by RAZD, posted 05-25-2008 4:18 AM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 27 of 138 (467879)
05-25-2008 8:30 AM
Reply to: Message 25 by RAZD
05-25-2008 4:18 AM


RAZD writes:
Including atheism. The only truly logical choice is a skeptical agnosticism, as anything else is a choice made on the basis of belief in knowing an unknowable truth.
I just pointed out that atheism is a skeptical agnosticism. A skeptical agnostic is not someone who will half believe in a golden creator unicorn with ten bollocks just because someone else makes the proposition. A skeptical agnostic will lack faith in any evidenceless proposition.
That's what an atheist is in relation to any Gods ever proposed. Someone who lacks faith in them all.
Believing in evidenceless propositions requires faith, but not believing in them doesn't.

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 Message 25 by RAZD, posted 05-25-2008 4:18 AM RAZD has replied

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 Message 30 by RAZD, posted 05-25-2008 9:02 AM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 36 of 138 (467897)
05-25-2008 12:20 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by RAZD
05-25-2008 9:02 AM


RAZD writes:
Only if it is highly skeptical about the existence but does not rule it out, and then it is usually called "weak atheism" (while an honest look would call it agnosticism). Strong atheism does not allow for the existence, and thus there is nothing "skeptical" about the position, rather a conclusion has been chosen that is not supported by the evidence.
Fine. No need to go off topic. Call it weak atheism. I've never met a strong atheist. The concept probably exists so that theists can pretend that atheists, like themselves, have a Faith.
You're welcome to describe people like Russell and Dawkins and any other well known weak atheists you can think of as agnostics if you want to.
What the O.P. seems to be about is that many people seem to think that if an evidenceless proposition cannot be disproven it somehow becomes a fifty/fifty idea, rather than having to gain credibility by presenting evidence in its favour.
I say that it's madness to believe in anything for which there's absolutely no evidence.
The agnostic arguments should automatically lead to what you call skeptical agnosticism, or weak atheism.
From wiki:
quote:
Atheism, as an explicit position, either affirms the nonexistence of gods or rejects theism. When defined more broadly, atheism is the absence of belief in deities, a type of nontheism.
No one can "affirm the nonexistence" of beings for whose existence there is no evidence, so only the broad definition is of any use.

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bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 101 of 138 (468744)
06-01-2008 3:34 AM
Reply to: Message 79 by Percy
05-30-2008 5:49 PM


Percy writes:
One problem with the absence of evidence argument is that there's never really an absence of evidence. There's always a scale running from strong evidence to moderate evidence to slim evidence to nearly non-existent evidence, but I don't the evidence for something, no matter how unlikely it might seem to many, ever reaches zero.
I wouldn't describe it that way. I think there are propositions for which the evidence is absolute zero, and there are propositions that go into the negative.
An example of a zero evidence proposition:
The universe was created by seven Goddesses because they wanted to see what would happen in black holes.
I call that zero evidence because there's no evidence for it or against it.
We get into negative territory when there's zero evidence supporting the proposition, but there's evidence against it. For example:
This planet is flat.
This planet is 6,300 years old.
I think the thread is concerned with propositions like the first one (the 7 Goddesses). No evidence against it does not make it a fifty/fifty proposition IMO. It's one of billions of creation of the universe ideas falling into the "zero evidence" category that we could dream up, so I think that such ideas should always be treated as extremely unlikely, and should never be taught to children as being "true".
Religious people, of all faiths, will disagree, of course, because all religious beliefs at best hit the zero evidence level (making them extremely unlikely) and quite a few are in the negative range (there's actually evidence against them).
When we get to scientific hypotheses like, for example, the existence of the Higgs Boson, then I agree with the view you expressed above. But such hypotheses are evidence based, however indirectly, so they are automatically far more worthy of serious consideration than my seven Goddesses proposition.
An interesting question would be whether or not there are some evidenceless propositions that are more likely than others (meaning those on zero evidence). I'd argue that there must be. For example, the general proposition of teleology in the universe is more likely than a specific proposition (like the seven Goddesses) and the more defined the seven Goddesses are (without evidence) the more remote the possibility of their existence.
If you get down to something very specific like:
The universe was created by a being who particularly favoured one middle-eastern tribe, has been known to do things like turning people into pillars of salt, and once visited his favoured tribe as his own son in order to save them from his own wrath.....then we're in the realms of the extremely unlikely.

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 Message 79 by Percy, posted 05-30-2008 5:49 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 102 by Percy, posted 06-01-2008 8:06 AM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 103 of 138 (468755)
06-01-2008 9:12 AM
Reply to: Message 102 by Percy
06-01-2008 8:06 AM


Percy writes:
And hopefully in everyone else's opinion, too, otherwise every impossible idea anyone blurts out becomes a fifty/fifty proposition simply because it hasn't been investigated yet, which seems absurd to me.
Well, exactly. Bluegenes claiming that the universe was created by 7 Goddesses and an ancient Egyptian doing so are one and the same. Evidenceless claims. Take, for example, a real belief that the Egyptians wrote about at some time in their history; that one of their Pharaohs was a living God. That's a zero evidence claim to me as well.
But your shells on top of mountains as one time apparent evidence for a world wide flood is something different, and a better example to back your view. Someone making this claim does have the shells to point to, rather than just claiming "there was a world wide flood" which, on its own, would be like my 7 Goddess claim.
It's interesting, though, that the flood claim, in consideration of current evidence, has actually moved into the negative area by my system (because there's evidence against it) whereas the Goddesses remain at absolute zero. So the flood, like the once reasonable observation based view that the sun goes round the earth, has thus gone from a better than zero evidence position to a worse than zero evidence position.
I think that your consensus opinion of scientists view is a good practical guide to what we teach our children in schools in any particular epoch. Even though we know that it's tentative, it's the nearest to objectivity we can get.
I think that our difference is mainly that you're being generous, and automatically giving an idea "some evidence" status as soon as it's proposed, whereas I don't think that the prophet bluegenes's claim that the universe was created by 7 Goddesses has that status, and it would be the same if the claim was made by an ancient Egyptian rather than a modern Englishman.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 102 by Percy, posted 06-01-2008 8:06 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 104 by Percy, posted 06-01-2008 10:28 AM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 105 of 138 (468765)
06-01-2008 12:51 PM
Reply to: Message 104 by Percy
06-01-2008 10:28 AM


Percy writes:
But in discussions with creationists there is no such inherent understanding of the nature of proper evidence. To them this is evidence, and the reasons why it is extremely poor evidence have to be respectfully addressed and explained.
I understand what you mean, although I don't think our Christian creationists would consider there to be any evidence for the claim of seven Goddesses, actually, any more than they consider there to be evidence for the claim that the Qur'an is the word of God. In fact, they immediately dismiss all baseless claims except their own, but I agree that their own can be zero (or sub-zero) on my system, and presumably "incredibly poor evidence" in yours.
I think that the complete absence of evidence is evidence of absence, but not proof of absence. But if you're going to claim that there is evidence for any assertion once it's made, then we won't quite agree on this.
So, if I've understood you, there is a tiny bit of evidence for the proposition that 157 Djinns created the universe as soon as someone makes that suggestion. But I think that such propositions are on the Russell's teapot in space level. So that, if not zero, virtual zero chance has to be given them.
However, I admit that I see degrees of plausibility, based on how general the proposition is. So, as I said in a post above, a very general claim of some kind of teleological origin to the universe has to beat specific claims like my Djinns and Goddesses in likelihood, even though it could be said to be equally evidenceless, on the basis that it includes them and an infinite number of other evidenceless propositions.
I'm probably contradicting myself somewhere there!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 104 by Percy, posted 06-01-2008 10:28 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 107 by Percy, posted 06-01-2008 4:32 PM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 108 of 138 (468814)
06-01-2008 5:32 PM
Reply to: Message 107 by Percy
06-01-2008 4:32 PM


Percy writes:
There's a part of this that is just nomenclature.
Too true. Just checking out Wiki on "evidence" shows that she can be a complicated little concept!
Evidence - Wikipedia
But there are still such things as evidenceless claims, I maintain, and someone seriously suggesting the existence of the teapot or my creator Djinns would be making such a claim.
The thing is, of course, such ridiculous claims are rarely if ever made by people doing science. Even hypotheses/theories that turn out to be completely false usually have some base in evidence and reason, like our ancestors watching the sun rise and set, and coming to understandable conclusions.
But in the world's many religions, they're common, and religion, unlike any other area of human thought, seems to have this special privileged position of being able to make often outrageous claims without presenting a jot of what I would call real evidence, although what's presented does meet your minimum and, as I said before, generous definition.
Sure, just nomenclature, and I hadn't realised that evidence was such a complicated word! False testimony in a court of law is certainly testimony, but is it evidence, I wonder?

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 Message 107 by Percy, posted 06-01-2008 4:32 PM Percy has not replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 117 of 138 (468890)
06-02-2008 6:38 AM
Reply to: Message 112 by randman
06-01-2008 7:14 PM


Evidence of the Supernatural needed.
randman writes:
Also, why should we only accept that which is empirically verifiable? If I or anyone has an experience with God, or angels or whatever, why should that belief be rejected simply because people lack the technology to experimentally verify it?
It's not lack of technology. Your experience wouldn't be counted as evidence for the existence of that particular God or for the angels because of the well documented evidence of people from different cultures reporting "experience" or visions of different Gods, and of different individuals reporting God's voice in their heads telling them contradictory things.
In past epochs, you might well have been taken seriously.
Looking at your prolific recent posting, randman, I think you ought to start a thread on evidence for the supernatural. This way, you could tie up the near death experience stuff with the ghost photograph that you posted on another thread plus the psychic stuff another member has posted above.
I say this because you're one of our most enthusiastic I.D. advocates, and presenting evidence that there are supernatural phenomena that effect life and the universe is an essential step that the I.D. movement must make.
The reason that methodological naturalism has gained in influence over the last few centuries is not because its practitioners share some grand philosophy (like metaphysical naturalism). They don't now, and historically, certainly didn't.
Its success is because natural explanations for natural phenomena have so often proved correct, and naturalistic science can be shown to work.
So, as the I.D. movement seeks to challenge the predominance of what's usually called "materialism" or "materialistic ideology" by I.D. advocates (see the mission statement on William Dembski's blog {here}) it is necessary to show that there is a supernatural side to things.
That's where the I.D. movement should be concentrating its research. What other research can it really do?
So why not start an evidence for the supernatural thread, not just to give us all a good laugh, but because this way you would actually be presenting evidence for your own camp, rather than merely making rather pathetic attacks on the naturalistic view of biology.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 112 by randman, posted 06-01-2008 7:14 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 118 by randman, posted 06-02-2008 12:19 PM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 122 of 138 (468936)
06-02-2008 2:07 PM
Reply to: Message 118 by randman
06-02-2008 12:19 PM


Then show us the evidence
randman writes:
Yawn.......as usual, you make the same boring error so many other materialists have. Think of it this way. God, angels, or any spiritual or supernatural thing is by definition, from a science perspective, a natural or material thing.
Fine. So what has Dembski got against materialism, if his God is material?
Positive evidence for the "natural or material" intelligent designer can now be presented. 6130 posts, and where is it?
You cannot define everything within the universe as automatically material or natural and then exclude spiritual things based on definitions. By definition then, spiritual things are "natural" relevant to the universe, but by your tone, it's obvious it may be best to conclude any discussions with you.
Never mind my tone. Think about yours. You act as though you have some grand theory which is supposed to be in competition with the modern evolutionary view, and the evidence presented is on the same level as the evidence for Santa Claus.
Absence of evidence is not proof of absence, but it is certainly evidence of absence. The modern Intelligent Design movement is about 20 years old, isn't it, and the designer(s) of life seem conspicuous by their absence.
Meanwhile, I.D. proponents spend all their time screaming at "mainstream" scientists for evidence of their views, which is blatant hypocrisy.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 118 by randman, posted 06-02-2008 12:19 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 123 by randman, posted 06-02-2008 2:46 PM bluegenes has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 124 of 138 (468950)
06-02-2008 3:26 PM
Reply to: Message 123 by randman
06-02-2008 2:46 PM


Re: Then show us the evidence
randman writes:
I'd suggest a different thread....
That's what I suggested in the post that started this dialogue.
The point on "material" is that you cannot define "material" as everything in the universe (i.e. everything in existence) and exclude the concept of God from it.
Up to you whether you define your God as material or not. I know nothing about the randman God, obviously. Some people put their Gods outside the material universe. It is I.D.ers and creationists who tend to use the word "materialist" to describe those who practice methodological naturalism. In fact, you called me a materialist in a post above, although I never call myself one. In the same post, you seem to imply that everything is material, including things normally described as supernatural. The thread I was suggesting was one in which you could present evidence for such things, something I think is long overdue from the I.D.ers.
I suppose we're wandering off topic. I'd certainly love to see a thread with evidence for I.D. on it, just for novelty's sake.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 123 by randman, posted 06-02-2008 2:46 PM randman has not replied

  
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