Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

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Res Ipsa
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Res Ipsa »

DrW wrote:
Mon May 03, 2021 10:49 pm
Res Ipsa wrote:
Mon May 03, 2021 4:48 pm
Peace.
Great.

Now that we have that settled, I think many of us would appreciate a few pointers from you as to how you would recommend handling an argument from lack of evidence, just in case something like this comes up again. If you don't mind, a set of bullet points or rules would suffice.

Thank you.
Thanks, Doc. I’d be happy to. I’ll give it a little thought.
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Morley »

huckelberry wrote:
Mon May 03, 2021 11:00 pm

And you have me stumped with your newest image. Maybe its there on the far edge of my memory.......
Ha! Kara Walker.

Image

I always thought it was a woman in the ocean after being thrown off a slave ship, but when I looked it up, I saw she calls it “your essentialist-token slave maiden in midair.”


............
............



But I'm mainly bumping this for Res Ipsa.
Res Ipsa wrote:
Mon May 03, 2021 11:02 pm
DrW wrote:
Mon May 03, 2021 10:49 pm
Now that we have that settled, I think many of us would appreciate a few pointers from you as to how you would recommend handling an argument from lack of evidence, just in case something like this comes up again. If you don't mind, a set of bullet points or rules would suffice.

Thank you.
Thanks, Doc. I’d be happy to. I’ll give it a little thought.

However, since the "argument from lack of evidence" is such a big deal in Mormonism, perhaps this deserves a discussion in its own thread?

.
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by DrW »

Morley wrote:
Sat May 08, 2021 5:23 pm

But I'm mainly bumping this for Res Ipsa.
Res Ipsa wrote:
Mon May 03, 2021 11:02 pm

Thanks, Doc. I’d be happy to. I’ll give it a little thought.
However, since the "argument from lack of evidence" is such a big deal in Mormonism, perhaps this deserves a discussion in its own thread?
Thank you. Somebody should bump this for Res Ipsa. He spent a good part of 70 pages complaining about what he apparently saw as my unsatisfactory approach to arguing from lack of evidence as I described the many reasons why the Russell M. Nelson burning engine - death spiral - restart - landing in a farm field story was nonsense.

My position was based on facts related to aircraft performance, aviation emergency procedures, event reporting requirements, and the air traffic communication and controls system in the 1970s. It was not based on the lack of (non-existent) evidence in support of the fantasy that many others were looking for.

RI finally agreed that the Russell M. Nelson story was nonsense with an admonishment to "do it right" when it came to arguing from lack of evidence. Having answered his questions to me on this thread, I asked him for a few pointers on what he believed would be the proper way to argue from lack of evidence. He agreed to do so. Crickets so far.
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Morley »

I do think it's an interesting subject, but wouldn't personally want to be responsible for laying out the parameters. I don't have the background in either philosophy or logic to be able to even know what the necessary questions are.

I remember trying to discuss this subject with BCSpace, before times, on the board that is no more. At the time, I had the impression that we were both in over our heads.

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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Morley »

Karl Popper. I'm sure someone will say the words Karl and Popper.
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Res Ipsa »

I will start a new thread, but have been a bit busy in real life.
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by DrW »

Morley wrote:
Sat May 08, 2021 11:30 pm
Karl Popper. I'm sure someone will say the words Karl and Popper.
Right you are. Here goes.

In my world, Karl Popper’s main contribution was recognizing and better understanding the importance of falsifiability and falsification in application of the scientific method.

If I recall correctly, Popper stated something to the effect that there is nothing wrong with assuming a theory is true until it has been falsified.

However, Popper also states that a single (verified) falsifying observation is all that is required to discount a theory, or in Russell M. Nelson's case, a story.

In the practice of law, it would seem that the more applicable concept in Popper's philosophy might be that of "verisimilitude" , in which the aspects of "looks like truth" of a claim are weighted against the aspects of "looks like falsity".
RI wrote: I will start a new thread, but have been a bit busy in real life.
RI's quest seemed to be an attempt to falsify the theory that the Russell M. Nelson story was false. Perhaps RI can help us understand his logic in that approach.

When faced with a claim having as little verisimilitude to reality as that of Russell M. Nelson's story, it would seem more efficient to consider facts that falsify the story rather than hoping to falsify the theory that the story is false.

____________________________

ETA, in response to PG's comment regarding the fact that experimental results can be wrong (or misinterpreted), and thinking about a fairly recent report in which it looked as if neutrinos were traveling through the Earth at FTL speeds (see URL below), I added the word 'verified' to Popper's paraphrased statement above. https://www.nature.com/news/neutrinos ... t%20speed.
Last edited by DrW on Mon May 10, 2021 1:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Physics Guy »

I don't know exactly what Popper said about this, but you don't really discard widely accepted hypotheses based on single contradictory observations. Experiments can be wrong, too, and in fact they quite often are, because experimental science is hard.

Popper is mostly famous for inverting the popular conception that experimental results that are consistent with a theory prove the theory. Instead, Popper argued that experiments can only ever disprove things, never prove them. I don't think this is really quite right, either. Quite often the agreement between experiment and theory can be so unbelievably precise that there's just no way the theory can fail to have a lot of truth in it. "Proof" might still be too strong but for practical purposes it isn't far short.

Popper's attitude is still useful, I think, though, because if even if one observation can't demolish a major theory, it is indeed inherently easier to disprove a hypothesis than to support it convincingly. So if you have a nice hypothesis, don't think about what experiments could support it. Think instead about what experiments could disprove it, and don't take the hypothesis too seriously until it has survived a few of those. It's just a more efficient way to work, because most hypotheses are wrong but it can take you a while to realise the massive flaws in your idea if you are thinking only in terms of supporting it.
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Res Ipsa »

DrW wrote:
Sat May 08, 2021 10:38 pm
Morley wrote:
Sat May 08, 2021 5:23 pm

But I'm mainly bumping this for Res Ipsa.



However, since the "argument from lack of evidence" is such a big deal in Mormonism, perhaps this deserves a discussion in its own thread?
Thank you. Somebody should bump this for Res Ipsa. He spent a good part of 70 pages complaining about what he apparently saw as my unsatisfactory approach to arguing from lack of evidence as I described the many reasons why the Russell M. Nelson burning engine - death spiral - restart - landing in a farm field story was nonsense.

My position was based on facts related to aircraft performance, aviation emergency procedures, event reporting requirements, and the air traffic communication and controls system in the 1970s. It was not based on the lack of (non-existent) evidence in support of the fantasy that many others were looking for.

RI finally agreed that the Russell M. Nelson story was nonsense with an admonishment to "do it right" when it came to arguing from lack of evidence. Having answered his questions to me on this thread, I asked him for a few pointers on what he believed would be the proper way to argue from lack of evidence. He agreed to do so. Crickets so far.
DrW, I took you at your word when you offered "peace." Please don't misrepresent my position. I did not "finally" agree that the Russell M. Nelson story was nonsense -- I started this thread from the position that the odds of all the details in all the versions were so unlikely to all be true, that we can assume that version is false.

Also, you didn't rest your argument solely on your expertise as a pilot. Throughout the thread you repeatedly cited the results of your database searches and absence of other evidence as conclusive or near conclusive proof that the story was false. If all you want to know is what you were doing wrong in those cases, just re-read the thread. If I'm going to address the subject for future reference, I'm going to take the time I think I need to do it. There is a world of difference between critiquing a position and addressing the subject in general.
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Res Ipsa »

DrW wrote:
Mon May 10, 2021 12:31 pm

RI wrote: I will start a new thread, but have been a bit busy in real life.
RI's quest seemed to be an attempt to falsify the theory that the Russell M. Nelson story was false. Perhaps RI can help us understand his logic in that approach.

When faced with a claim having as little verisimilitude to reality as that of Russell M. Nelson's story, it would seem more efficient to consider facts that falsify the story rather than hoping to falsify the theory that the story is false.
____________________________

DrW, I explained what I was doing in this thread several times: trying to determine what, if anything, was the factual basis for the story. Please don't straw man me. I was not attempting to falsify whatever theory you were presenting. I objected when you misused evidence. That's it.
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When I go to sea, don’t fear for me. Fear for the storm.

Jessica Best, Fear for the Storm. From The Strange Case of the Starship Iris.
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