Milesius wrote: To the contrary, as a statistician, I know well what evidence means. Formal logical arguments and probabilistic/statistical arguments that are valid and sound most certainly are evidence.
Apart from Mormonism, you have shown yourself to be a dilettante on every subject on which you've chosen to opine.
No, arguments do not count as evidence in any way, shape or form. Come back to me when you've got some valid evidence instead of philosophical naval gazing.
Parley P. Pratt wrote:We must lie to support brother Joseph, it is our duty to do so.
Chap wrote:I suggest to you that the important thing is not whether an individual scientist 'abandons his errors'. Science is not just something that happens in a scientist's head.
Uh, I said scientists, as in as a group they tend to cling to errors.
Chap wrote:The point is rather that science is a large, diffuse and evolving social institution, that has demonstrated repeatedly that it does succeed in abandoning things shown not to work, and embracing those that do. It thrives on new questions, and rewards those who ask fruitful ones. Those who can succeed in persuading the majority of scientists to abandon an old idea and adopt a new one are richly rewarded in terms of reputation.
Seriously, read some philosophy of science.
Chap wrote:Such an institution is very different indeed from an institution such as a religion, most of whose effort is often spent in discouraging the asking of awkward questions and defending the old answers against all attacks from wherever they come.
First of all, neither "science" nor "religion" are institutions. They are concepts. And, what you have done is define "science" to be in opposition to "religion" and you have made sure that the concept "science" compares favorably to "religion." I wholly reject your conceptualization of religion, mainly because outside of fundamentalist groups (which unfortunately all too often includes Mormons), religion doesn't work that way.
Look, there are bad apples on both sides. There are also good apples on both sides. But let's stop the silly caricatures where everyone on one side is white knights and the other side is dark hearted villains.
I have the impression that you consider yourself the person on this board who knows about the history and philosophy of science.
I am content to leave you in that role, since I am here to talk about problems concerned with the beliefs of the CoJCoLDS. But the idea that science, like religion, is best understood as a 'concept' is one which I don't seem to remember often being thought of as a fruitful mode of investigation. No doubt it was all explained in one of the books I have obviously not read.
If on looking at the history of the two 'concepts' called science and religion you can see no difference in their epistemological fruitfulness, or their openness to new thinking, then again who am I to argue with an expert like yourself?
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.