Scientific Conclusions

[_Sethbag]

I do want to state, for the record, that it really bums me out when we tear each other down. I've certainly waxed hyperbolic in my rhetoric in several of my recent posts, but I do see this sliding out of control in general with personal attacks and animosity, and I am unhappy about it. I think we each add our own value in our own ways to the board, and even if we didn't, should still treat each other more respectfully.

I respect Stak and Aristotle greatly, and even though their discussion tactics have sometimes frustrated and even annoyed me, I really hope I've not come across as personally attacking them. If I ever have, I apologize, and I hope we can get back to argument and discussion the way they're meant to happen, and not personal attacks.

[_zeezrom]

The first paragraph you are talking about the scientific method, and your second paragraph was an example in which you attempted to apply it. So your hypothesis or question you are seeking to answer is "Is the Book of Mormon historically true?" That is a scientific question and how you seek a conclusion can be critically evaluated. Your evidence is completely subjective, that is it's not open to any sort of objective verification. On what basis can one objectively assume that your feelings/goosebumps/reaction from praying about this issue would or could lead to a reliable conclusion on whether the Book of Mormon is historically true? How reliable is the sort of evidence you've used and does it commensurate with the claim? Have you tested the reliability of trusting your physiological reaction as a means of ascertaining conclusions..by examining if that method works or not with some test open to verification? What else have you done or critically examined to determine if the Book of Mormon is reliably historically true?

So if I were to assess your evidence and how that evidence commensurates with your conclusion of and your reasoning to warrant your conclusion ..my assessment is your methodology evidence and reasoning does not objectively warrant your conclusion. You personally can believe it does, you can believe whatever you wish irrespective of good reasoning and evidence, but as a good critical thinker you should appreciate how unreliable your methodology and weak your evidence is to warrant your conclusion.

OK, marg. I've spent a little time with this because I have the kids today. I sent my wife off to a garden convention. You said that my hypothesis was that praying would lead to a reliable conclusion that the Book of Mormon is true. Actually, that was not my original hypothesis. My hypothesis was:

I hypothesized that if I prayed to God asking if the Book of Mormon is true, historical scripture, I would begin to feel a mood change/bubbly feeling/goosebumbs within 5 minutes or so of my prayer.

I worded it that way on purpose. I felt it would be a worthy experiment. If I pray, will I get a physical response? I did the experiment and I found it was true. I did get a response.

For the record, I tried this same experiment with another God with a totally different question and found it true again.

I wasn't trying to figure out if the Book was true. I was trying to see if I would get a response in my body/mind. I did.

[_beefcalf]

Marg is...well....Marg.

The way you worded things is fine, but the issue is the role of evidence in deciding which theory to take over others. Any theory you craft can be mirrored to produce 10+ theories of equal evidentiary value.

As you may have noticed beefcalf, there was nothing wrong with your statement and despite Stak going on about "Any theory you craft can be mirrored to produce 10+ theories of equal evidentiary value" that only applied to philosophical word games and not to your statement which was about how science operates.

That's the general conclusion I've arrived at, as well. I think I understand Stak's enjoyment of exploring logical exercises and apparent paradoxes, but the outlandish conclusions they sometimes lead us to are so disconnected with the everyday reality we experience that any sufficiently conscious person will exercise caution in accepting those conclusions at face value.

Stak's conclusion seems to suggest that science cannot work. Perhaps he feels it is more nuanced than that, but even if that is only generally the conclusion of his argument, I feel justified in rejecting it. Such a conclusion seems to suggest that the huge medical, technical and engineering advances we've made over the last five-hundred years are an illusion, or it simply disregards them completely.

As I stated earlier in this thread, I think logical exercises do have value, and are often fun. They often have very real and very important uses in science, law and ethics. But when a logical conclusion so clearly disregards vast swaths of reality, it seems silly to assert that it has value.

I've been traveling for work and have had only intermittent access to this thread over the last 12 hours. Thanks for picking up the baton and running with it, marg.

[_Sethbag]

Such a conclusion seems to suggest that the huge medical, technical and engineering advances we've made over the last five-hundred years are an illusion, or it simply disregards them completely.

If I'm understanding the objections correctly, he would have to say that all the scientific achievements have been made because the universe has fortuitously continued to operate as if the laws of physics were uniform over time. We can't know that this should be the case, but we've "lucked out", as it were, that they have been. I guess all a realist can say back to this is: "I can live with that!"

[_EAllusion]

The fact that a large (possibly infinite) number of theories can be equally consistent with a set of data does affect how science operates. How could it not? It's a well known problem that was discussed during my science edcuation in such hotbeds of phil of science as personality psych and microbiology. Scientists just work out amongst themselves what sort of considerations should count when picking particular theories among the myriad options. People who study scientific methods and the history/sociology of science try to figure out what sorts of considerations they are relying on and try to evaluate whether this is reasonable. This does ultimately filter back into science proper and help steer how scientists go about their jobs. When a scientist talks about how one no one experiment can prove a theory, but one elegantly designed one can disprove it, she's wrong, but she's also importing (outmoded) phil of science into her thinking that probably plays a role in what kind of research decisions she makes.

[_marg]

I'll address your post later EA in this post, I'm just heading out for the afternoon.

[_MrStakhanovite]

That's the general conclusion I've arrived at, as well.

I would not parse this conversation through marg, she’s way too far out of her element to do much but make bad points.

Fact is you couldn’t defend your scientific worldview for squat. You provided no way to parse one theory from another, and basically conceded you couldn’t. The only thing you’ve managed to do is the tired old apologist tactic, “Well I can’t really make coherent sense of Church doctrine, but by golly, the Church has survived, helped millions of people and flourished, so it must be true.”

Oh, and you complained about the value of logic, using a complex string of symbols governed by logical rules. Good job sport!

[_MrStakhanovite]

I thought you were talking about me, but apparently not then. I haven't said jack about Brant's work, and I admit I'm no expert in mesoamerican archeology, and have never claimed otherwise. Well, that's a relief.

It’s called an analogy. Your fumbling with the basics of the most common ontological argument is analogous to the Brant Gardner example.

[_Sethbag]

I thought you were talking about me, but apparently not then. I haven't said jack about Brant's work, and I admit I'm no expert in mesoamerican archeology, and have never claimed otherwise. Well, that's a relief.

It’s called an analogy. Your fumbling with the basics of the most common ontological argument is analogous to the Brant Gardner example.

Ah, so you were talking about me. Screw you then! Just kidding.

I've got no problem admitting that I have only relatively recently (in the last 2-3 years) become aware of the phrase "ontological argument" in the first place. And what I have read of this type of logical argument was done informally, and not in an academic setting. So if I fumbled the basics of the argument, then my bad. I am curious how you would respond to my argument that ontological arguments are fundamentally disqualified from being asserted as evidence about what really must exist in the universe, on the basis of unproven, and unjustified definitions being asserted as part of the argument.

Back to the overall gist of this thread, however, I simply don't think you have convinced me or anyone else that there is a fundamental weakness in science that renders it, or any practitioner of it, or even just advanced fan of it like me, incapable of being meaningfully used in judging what I consider to be testable claims of religion. That, I believe, is ultimately what all this is about. You're trying to undercut the idea that science can have anything to say about religious claims, and I disagree with that.

[_beefcalf]

That's the general conclusion I've arrived at, as well.

I would not parse this conversation through marg, she’s way too far out of her element to do much but make bad points.

Fact is you couldn’t defend your scientific worldview for squat. You provided no way to parse one theory from another, and basically conceded you couldn’t. The only thing you’ve managed to do is the tired old apologist tactic, “Well I can’t really make coherent sense of Church doctrine, but by golly, the Church has survived, helped millions of people and flourished, so it must be true.”

Oh, and you complained about the value of logic, using a complex string of symbols governed by logical rules. Good job sport!

Do you realize how much more effective you would be at persuading people to see things the way you see them if you weren't always trying so hard to be a jerk?

Dude, people disagree with each other. How many ad hominems have you hurled at Seth and Chap and me simply because we see things differently? 'Sport', 'Dawkfag', 'midgets in the LDS Lollipop guild'.

You know what would make MDB a little better? If Stak and his nasty attitude took a hike.

You know what would make MDB a lot better? If Stak stuck around and used his knowledge of logic and philosophy to expand our collective understanding, and tossed the nasty attitude out the window.

Just sayin'