Gemli explains...

[Moksha]

There is no rule that says “oral or written statements can’t be considered evidence unless they come with some kind of physical evidence.

"Your Honor, the question shouldn't be whether there are flying saucers, but whether the aliens asked nicely when they probed me. They did your Honor and made pleasant trilling sounds as well."

Gemli just gets hung up on the need for evidence regarding supernatural claims. Bring in Kirton McConkie to set him straight!!!

[Marcus]

Continuing with the theme of the thread...

gemli > DanielPeterson
18 hours ago

We can't prove the nonexistence of anything. It's up to those who make a positive claim to provide evidence for it.

Religious claims of the supernatural are inconsistent with observed reality. We can't examine a single such claim. They are merely asserted to be true, even though they claim the truth of extraordinary events, supernatural beings and realms, and deny the finality of death. It seems pretty certain that a dead monkey is dead. But a dead simian ape with a slightly larger brain (in most cases) will apparently live forever, just because it invented stories that say they will.

People brought up in certain areas of the world, or in a certain area of our country, are immersed in some religious beliefs that are almost required if they want to live in peace. God help those who point out the blithering nonsense that those claims consist of.

I don't think it's been a waste of time. And I think it's interesting that someone who is obviously intelligent and well spoken could be in thrall to a belief that make other theists roll their eyes out of their sockets.

[bolding added for parts relevant to our discussion of witness testimony.]

Especially meaningful is this, in my opinion, for those immersed in certain communities or who have large numbers of family members of a single high demand belief system:

People brought up in certain areas of the world, or in a certain area of our country, are immersed in some religious beliefs that are almost required if they want to live in peace. God help those who point out the blithering nonsense that those claims consist of.

And given our discussion about the development and use of heuristics, this is interesting:

gemli > DanielPeterson
a day ago

I wonder how many extraordinary supernatural claims I would have to evaluate before I would be justified in dismissing them. Given the number of such claims, we should be tripping over ghosts, devils, demons, gods, sprites, shades, specters, fairies, golems, the odd banshee and who knows what else. We've invented these things out of fear and ignorance. They may not exist, but they manifest in our imaginations because we attribute the unexplained to the immaterial.

[Dr. Shades]

This argument of Gemli’s is not the knock out punch he seems to think it is. It’s a shallow application of post-modern deconstruction.

His claim is simply wrong. Stories are evidence.

Of what is The Lord of the Rings evidence?

The murder weapon in a trial, just sitting there in front of the jury, isn’t evidence of anything. It becomes evidence through the stories told by witnesses and experts.

But the murder weapon actually exists, as I believe gemli would say.

What Gemli is functionally doing with this argument is special pleading that religious stories should be treated differently than other stories. But I’m not seeing an attempt to justify the special pleading.

I don't think it's special pleading when pointing out whether actual physical evidence for the stories does or does not exist.

[Physics Guy]

Stories are evidence.

Of what is The Lord of the Rings evidence?

Res Ipsa's statement was like the sentence, "People drink coffee," said in response to a claim that no-one drinks coffee, to assert that some people do drink coffee. It does not mean that all people drink coffee.

[I Have Questions]

The murder weapon in a trial, just sitting there in front of the jury, isn’t evidence of anything. It becomes evidence through the stories told by witnesses and experts.

I thought a murder weapon became evidence through objective testing and analysis, not “stories”. You know, fingerprints, blood samples, wound to weapon shape comparisons, dna, etc.

If a person, say, tells a story that they were abducted by aliens, that’s not evidence that they were abducted by aliens. That’s not evidence of aliens. That’s not evidence of alien abductions. The story, in and of itself is so remarkable, and so out of the ordinary, it requires more than just a person (or lots of people) claiming it happened for the idea that aliens abducted the person to be generally accepted as “real”.

And that is where, I think, Gemli is coming from.

[Physics Guy]

I have not served on any juries, but I'm pretty sure that the whole jury doesn't get trained in ballistics, go to the lab with the alleged murder weapon, and conduct all those tests personally. Instead some expert tells the jury a story, about how the weapon was tested—probably after someone else has told the jury a story about how that ballistics expert is a qualified expert.

At some point the weapon really was tested. The jury only have people's word for that, though. So just how is the thinking of a jury who accepts the expert's word different from the thinking of Mormons who believe that Joseph Smith got golden plates from an angel because someone told them so?

Of course I agree that murder weapons exist and Smith's angel did not. Simply saying this isn't an argument, though. It's begging the question.

The fact that angels are a lot more uncommon than weapons, even according to people who believe in angels, does seem to me like a solid and relevant point. We should expect more evidence before believing in angels, because their prior likelihood is lower. There are also a lot of particular details about Smith's story that are suspicious. I don't buy that angel for a moment.

The reason I doubt the angel isn't that stories aren't evidence, though. It's that these particular stories are nowhere near good enough evidence to outweigh the prior unlikelihood of this angel.

[Marcus]

Of what is The Lord of the Rings evidence?

Res Ipsa's statement was like the sentence, "People drink coffee," said in response to a claim that no-one drinks coffee, to assert that some people do drink coffee. It does not mean that all people drink coffee.

Except, as IHaveQuestions just pointed out, we are talking about stories of supernatural encounters in the context of gemli's statements, not about opinions regarding mundane physical objects.

So, it's really more like the sentence, "I've seen fairies in my garden," said in response to a claim that no-one sees fairies, to assert that some people do see fairies. Of course it does not mean that all people see fairies, but it also isn't sufficient to prove fairies exist, or that anyone at all has seen a fairy. One can bring coffee into the courtroom, but no one has yet produced an actual fairy, tagged exhibit A. Only stories about fairies exist, and stories about fairies are not evidence of fairies.

Stories such as news reports of the verification of the existence of particles at an actual physical location at CERN, where actual people go in and out, and actual verifiable documentation is repeatedly published and commented on by other actual, real scientists, are simply not "stories" in the same category as stories about an angel that brought (and then disappeared off the planet) plates engraved in a language of which there has never been any evidence of its existence, recounting an ancient history of which there is also no evidence of its existence.

Of course its a continuum and there may some murky ground, but at the moment, coffee and large hadron colliders are clearly on one side of it, while angels, gold plates, fairies and LOTR middle earth sites are on the other.

[Physics Guy]

To say that stories about murder weapons can be evidence, but stories about fairies cannot be evidence, is special pleading, unless you can explain, without begging the question, why the subject of the stories makes this big difference.

I take stories as evidence all the time. If my brother-in-law tells me a story about liking this particular beer, I'll believe that it's a good beer, and go so far as to try it myself.

On the other hand, if the same guy told me he'd seen a fairy in the garden, I wouldn't believe in the fairy. I might entertain the possibility that there was something in my brother-in-law's garden that kind of looked like a fairy, but that's as far as it would go, and my more favored hypothesis would have to do with that beer.

I think I'm being reasonable, but I don't think that my reasonableness is accurately explained by saying that stories about fairies aren't evidence. I think the real explanation is that stories in general are relatively weak evidence, and that fairies are very a priori unlikely. It's not that plywood can't support weight. Plywood can. It's tough stuff. You can totally build things from plywood. It's just that plywood isn't strong enough for a railway bridge.

[Marcus]

... So just how is the thinking of a jury who accepts the expert's word different from the thinking of Mormons who believe that Joseph Smith got golden plates from an angel because someone told them so?

This is an interesting aspect of sociological experience. On a jury, as a presumably educated and qualified adult, you can review the credentials of the expert, see whether both sides agree as to their expertise, then hear their testimony, plus hear the questions asked of them by both sides. And then, decide whether they were credible, after discussing it with a group.

For many of the Mormons and former Mormons here, the story is very different. They may have experienced extreme indoctrination and maybe even intellectual isolation, literally from birth, and at a very vulnerable young time may have had Mormon 'experts' testify to them, and impose limits on their choices if they had questions. The emotional component of fitting in to one's group also has a huge influence.

So yes, quite literally, there is a significant and quantifiable difference between "the thinking of a jury who accepts the expert's word" and "Mormons who believe."

Many, many people here have recounted the moment when the true impact of this dichotomy dawned on them. At which point, many embarked on a journey you could describe as the jury's experience, seeking out the experts, learning their credentials, and reviewing the evidence. With great vigor.

The reason I doubt the angel isn't that stories aren't evidence, though. It's that these particular stories are nowhere near good enough evidence to outweigh the prior unlikelihood of this angel.

Now you're sounding like gemli!

gemli
DanielPeterson
2 days ago

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Claims of gods, angels and the like are extraordinary.

It's possible that your previous responses didn't provide anything like the proof necessary to justify the claim.

[Marcus]

To say that stories about murder weapons can be evidence, but stories about fairies cannot be evidence, is special pleading, unless you can explain, without begging the question, why the subject of the stories makes this big difference.

I'm not planning to write a novel, but you must have missed my argument. I'll highlight the non-begging:

Except, as IHaveQuestions just pointed out, we are talking about stories of supernatural encounters in the context of gemli's statements, not about opinions regarding mundane physical objects.

So, it's really more like the sentence, "I've seen fairies in my garden," said in response to a claim that no-one sees fairies, to assert that some people do see fairies. Of course it does not mean that all people see fairies, but it also isn't sufficient to prove fairies exist, or that anyone at all has seen a fairy. One can bring coffee into the courtroom, but no one has yet produced an actual fairy, tagged exhibit A. Only stories about fairies exist, and stories about fairies are not evidence of fairies.

Stories such as news reports of the verification of the existence of particles at an actual physical location at CERN, where actual people go in and out, and actual verifiable documentation is repeatedly published and commented on by other actual, real scientists, are simply not "stories" in the same category as stories about an angel that brought (and then disappeared off the planet) plates engraved in a language of which there has never been any evidence of its existence, recounting an ancient history of which there is also no evidence of its existence.

...I think I'm being reasonable, but I don't think that my reasonableness is accurately explained by saying that stories about fairies aren't evidence. I think the real explanation is that stories in general are relatively weak evidence...

Which has been stated repeatedly. Glad we agree.