Biased Interpretation?

Science doesn't aim so "high" as to find "truth". It attempts to find a best possible explanation for the facts that are at hand at the time.It is for sure that individuals go through this process with personal biases. The process itself and the community of those practicing it may have global bias (or whatever you wish to call them).It has been claimed, many times, that these biases produce erroneous results.The questions are: what are the biases? in what way do they lead to erroneous results? is there another process entirely that could be gone through for finding the best that we can find about the natural world?It seems the best way to demonstrate this is to itemize the biases and show how they affect the interpretation of all the facts and only the facts at hand. To show the logic leading to a different conclusion about the natural world that some creationists claim are wrong.Why hasn't this been forthcoming after all this time?I do happen to think that we "know" (as best as we can) what the best explanation is now. I also think that there is only one working and workable method for finding things out about the natural world.When someone offers up an alternative it will be interesting to have a look at it.It isn't, I don't think, that we are blinded to the alternative; it is that one is simply not offered for examination.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 03-09-2005 20:24 AM

So really, you've already closed your mind to any other explaination than the evolutionist one. And all you are really trying to do is see why other people think otherwise. If that's the case, then why debate the topic if you've made up your mind and are not open to the other point of view? You say there is no other explaination that has been proposed. But isn't there? Aren't there many many scientists with PhD's who have turned from an evolutionary point of view to at least an ID point of view? They saw something to it. You might want to look beyond the "that's religious" card that evolutionists keep playing, and look at the actual science of the view as presented by some pretty smart guys. And look at it not as "how can I refute this?" but "is this plausible or more plausible than evolution?". If you've already made up your mind, what's the point of science and debate? What do you seek in science and debate if you have the comclusion predetermined? Isn't that a bias that you seem so against?Also, why doesn't science aim at truth? It tries to find the most plausible explaination for the evidence, derived from the evidence. Is not that looking for the truth? Sure, all science is induction; it deals with probability, not certainty. But still, we search for what is most probably the truth, not what we want the evidence to say. Don't we?

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The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.
-Mark Twain

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Well...actually if you read my definition...it's synonymous with a bias. At least I've always heard them used interchangably, maybe you've heard different.

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I don't think they're the same. For example, I have a bias in that I think any given event I encounter is likely to have a naturalistic explanation. I don't know that every event has such an explanation, however. I'm aware that I have my bias, and I'm aware that I could be mistaken in this area. A Bayesian would say that I assign a low prior probability to non-natural explanations.

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Um, can you give an example of some secular rulers during the Dark Ages.

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For example, can you list the Dark Ages rulers who did not rule by divine fiat?

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In deference to the moderator (and the large stick he carries), I will refrain from replying to your request.

No, we've simply closed our minds to any explanations besides those based on the evidence. And what's unreasonable about that? When you close your mind to lies, only the truth is left. Until they have a model, what's to discuss? Solipcism.

Well, you assume that there is no other explanation than your's that is based on the evidence. Many who believe in ID or Creationism would ironically also think that their explanation is derived straight from the evidence (granted many also blindly believe it, which I don't endorse). So maybe your's isn't the only one based on the evidence as you had thought. Also, if you've assumed everything else but what you believe is a lie, and you close your mind to those things, then first, how can you expect others to open their minds to your point of view in a debate, and second, what's the point in studying science or debating if your conclusion is already made up?Also, many Id theorists and Creationists have very structured line of reasoning from evidence. You might try looking into the Discovery Institute's work.Lastly, if you truly hold to Solipsism, then there really is absolutely no point in studying science or debating at all, bacause you can never know anything whatsoever (outside of your existence). According to true Solipsism, you can't even know if everything other than yourself is merely your own illusions. Because in Solipsism, all you can truly know is your own existence. Maybe this wasn't what you were implying..correct me if I'm wrong.

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The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.
-Mark Twain

Not really. We assume that there are none that we know of. The ones we know about have been refuted. But they demonstrably do not use the same evidence. So, we are correct in assuming that there is no known alternative to evolution. No such assumption made. We assume that they have been refuted, yes, but not necessarily a lie. Our minds were open, we considered those things and then they were rejected. Very simple. Why would we continuouslly go back to ideas that have been rejected? We don't make that assumption. But it would be nice if they did open their minds, just as we opened ours to their ideas and found them wanting. But no, I do not expect anyone to have an open mind. We study science for many reasons. To debate creationism is pretty far down the priority list, believe me. This is pure entertainment for some of us. Been there, done that. Having a structured line of reasoning is not the same as being correct or scientific. For instance, arbitrarily rejecting radiometric dates (evidence) can have a noticable effect on precision and accuracy no matter how structured or logical one might be.

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Well, you assume that there is no other explanation than your's that is based on the evidence.

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No, I conclude from the repeated failure over many years of anyone to offer another explanation based on the evidence that there is (at present) no such explanation.

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Many who believe in ID or Creationism would ironically also think that their explanation is derived straight from the evidence (granted many also blindly believe it, which I don't endorse). So maybe your's isn't the only one based on the evidence as you had thought.

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I would find this much more plausible if someone (it could be you, it could be anyone) would actually
a) present the alternative explanation and
b) tell me how it explains the evidence.
I don't mean some vague hand-waving when it comes to the evidence; I mean the nitty-gritty, detailed, specific evidence that scientists have to deal with every day. In my case, it means genetic data and especially human genetic data. I have been looking for creationists to explain human genetic data for quite a while, and I've found exactly one who may, possibly, be willing to make the attempt (and he does it by essentially conceding the truth of evolution).As for ID, I have no idea what it's supposed to be explaining, exactly, nor do I know what the explanation is. I know what the evolutionary explanation is for, say, variation in human diversity at different points in the genome. What's the ID explanation? Is the same or not?

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second, what's the point in studying science or debating if your conclusion is already made up?

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What's the point of either science or debate if you aren't willing to conclude at some point, and after lots of study and discussion, that some idea are just plain wrong? Why do we have to keep entertaining them when they've shown themselves to be bankrupt for years?

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Aren't there many many scientists with PhD's who have turned from an evolutionary point of view to at least an ID point of view?

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Among those who actually know something about the subject? No, not that I'm aware of. Among those who actually deal with evolution, all use it, simply because it works, and works extremely well. Creationism is consistently wrong if you try to apply it, and ID is (at least at this point) pretty much a whole lot of nothing: it has no empirical (i.e. testable) consequences that I know of.

It's not an assumption, it's an observation. I observe that there are no alternatives to evolution that are based on the evidence. All the alternatives are based on ignorance. But I observe that they are wrong - that they have based their arguments on evidence which does not actually exist. My mind is made up, but it's also open to new evidence. I've come to a conclusion based on the evidence that we have. At such time that we have additional evidence, I'll see if I need to change my mind. But until then, there's no reason to. My VCR works no matter if its a really real object, or just a figment of my imagination. Science leads to testable predictions about our experiences no matter if those experiences reflect real reality, or if they're part of a shared hallucination. Science is the only method of constructing models in the face of solipcism. And the thing about solipcism is, you can't rebut it. I can't even know that. But in the meantime, thanks to science, I can surf the internet.

What did they see, though?Without knowing the totality of the evidence upon which they based their conclusion, I can only speculate as to the reasons for a change in position. I've come up with 3 possibilities, though.1. They had a bias towards ID. They believed in evolution before they looked at the evidence, based (most likely) on an appeal to the authority of scientists. Once they looked at the evidence for themselves, however, they no longer needed to take anyone's word as to what it indicated, as they could interpret it for themselves. Unfortunately, their bias colored their interpretation of the evidence.2. They started with the whole, broke it down to into its components; then forgot that they started with the whole, and were amazed that the components added up perfectly.
Example:"4074"Components:385, 56, 624, 82, 2005, 922"Why is the third number 624, and not 625 or 623? Wow, it sure looks like something specifically picked '624' so that it would total exactly 4074!"
Sorry, but you started with 4074. Saying that the components could add up to something different requires a world in which 4074 doesn't always have to equal 4074 -- where x can = not x.
We don't live in that world. However, if you forgot that what you were actually doing is subtracting from 4074, it can appear as though the components could have added up to a different total.3. They actually saw something that the mainstream theories cannot account for.As far as 3's go, I've only seen some rather iffy ones. They're sufficient to leave the door open to other possibilities, but that's about it.If you have 9999 weathervanes all pointing in one direction, and 1 pointing in another, I'm gonna go with the 9999 until I have a good explanation for such a systemic fault.

That's easy."Some powerful being planted the evidence."Evolution was framed!

yes.I am wondering if you are a YEC creationist or a theistic evolutionist now. Could you clarify?The ID folks (as far as I have read) accept an old earth and that evolution can account for a large fraction of the change and diversity of life on earth. They all (I think all) think that there is no way that life could not arise from non-life without a designer of somesort intervening which is not about evolutionary theory anyway. They then think that there are specific details of evolution which can not arise by the currently understood mechansims. Which leaves a lot for evolution. Do these views coincide with yours.If so then we should take it all to an ID thread as that is a rather special subset arguement and not what we usually call creationist.Meanwhile I suspect (but haven't read yet) that the ID folk have problems doing real science and working from evidence but as I said let's leave that to an ID thread.There too we have asked for the evidence. There seems to be one "IC" thing after another even though IC has been shown to be not a useful concept here and when one example after another is shown not to be useful.

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The ID folks (as far as I have read) accept an old earth and that evolution can account for a large fraction of the change and diversity of life on earth. They all (I think all) think that there is no way that life could not arise from non-life without a designer of somesort intervening which is not about evolutionary theory anyway. They then think that there are specific details of evolution which can not arise by the currently understood mechansims. Which leaves a lot for evolution.

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I think you've described Behe's position, but not that of ID. The only statement that ID makes about evolution is that intelligence had to be involved somewhere; it doesn't say where or when. I've heard that one DI fellow, Paul Nelson, is a YEC, while Behe pretty clearly isn't. Most just refuse to talk about it. There is no agreed-upon ID list of points in evolutionary biology that known mechanisms can't explain; there isn't even an agreement that there must be such points (Dembski occasionally seems willing to move the input of intelligence back to the structure and laws of the universe).This is why I find it hard to view ID as an alternative explanation to evolution. As far as I can tell, it doesn't make any clear statements about the subject at all.

I could do a general reply to all of you, but Ned brough up the question of what I believed so it'd be best as a reply here. I would call myself an Evidentialist Creationist, that is, I believe in Creationism simply because I cannot see how Evolution is more probable scientifically than Creationism, since naturally science can only conclude on probabilities. I just cannot comprehend the plauibility of the Evolutionist point of view, not because I assume Creationism blindly, but because after looking at both sides of the discussion, Creationism just ends up working. Now a number of you asked for scientific reasons how there could be any other option than Evolution, and as not to get off topic here I'll give you two links to the proposed new topic section.This is why I cannot see how materialism holds up:
http://EvC Forum: Does Materialism Hold Up?And this is a little essay I wrote a while ago on the topic of Evolution where I give evidences for ID mostly.
EvC Forum: Reasons for rejecting Evolution

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The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.
-Mark Twain