My earlier post on this subject was entitled “What is Scientism?” because, while I have seen the term thrown around in a number of venues, I have never been entirely sure what it means. Having had a chance now to digest some of the arguments raised in the comments, as well as the thoughts expressed at other blogs, I think it's time to go another round.
The first point I made in my earlier post was that, in the context of science/religion disputes, to be accused of scientism was to be accused of being insufficiently respectful towards religion. A perfect example of what I had in mind is this post by Ian Hutchinson. He writes:
One of the most visible conflicts in current culture is between “scientism” and religion. Because religious knowledge differs from scientific knowledge, scientism claims (or at least assumes) that it must therefore be inferior. However, there are many other important beliefs, secular as well as religious, which are justified and rational, but not scientific, and therefore marginalized by scientism. And if that is so, then scientism is a ghastly intellectual mistake.
This, I would suggest, is precisely what we need less of. We should reject totally the idea that there are two kinds of knowledge, scientific on the one hand and religious on the other. The relevant distinction between scientific knowledge claims and religious knowledge claims is that the former are based on reliable methods while the latter are not. Those of us keen to stress the centrality of scientific methods in establishing legitimate knowledge claims are usually responding to arguments like Hutchinson's.
Moving on, my next point was that it is very easy to fall into a definitional morass when discussing this issue. The correctness of the assertion that science is the only way of knowing depends a lot on how you define the phrases “science” and “way of knowing.” It is very easy to render this discussion trivial by taking a sufficiently narrow definition of science.
For example, if you define science so that it is limited entirely to questions about the natural world, then it is obvious that science is not the only way of knowing. Historians produce knowledge, but they do not study the natural world. I would be very much surprised, though, if any of the folks typically accused of scientism actually reject historical scholarship as a legitimate route to knowledge. If history is the refutation of scientism, then no one is guilty of scientism.
It is certainly true that in everyday usage, when people use the word “science” they are usually thinking of something related to the natural world, probably physics, chemistry or biology. But it is equally true that people don't usually have abstract discussions about ways of knowing. From my perspective, while it may seem odd to consider history a science, it is even odder to say that scientific knowledge is different in some fundamental way from historical knowledge. It is far more natural to say that they are the results of very similar methods applied to different questions.
Every science educator I have ever met has emphasized to his students that science is best thought of as a method of investigation. If you take that seriously, it is clear that the large collection of methods employed by scientists in their work can be applied just as well to questions that have nothing to do with the natural world. The reason we have a term like “social science” is to capture the idea that there are fields of inquiry with enough of the attributes of science to be worthy of the label despite not studying the natural world. I would further note that people routinely speak of having a scientific mindset or of taking a scientific approach to a problem.
So I don't think it is unreasonable, in the context of these sorts of discussions, to define science very broadly. It just seems silly to me to say that scientific knowledge is one kind of thing, historical knowledge is something else, philosophical knowledge is a third and mathematical knowledge is a fourth. Mathematicians primarily use deductive reasoning in their work, but deductive reasoning is not some special, mathematical approach to knowledge that is separate from what scientists do. The primary tool of philosophy is dialectical argumentation, but this, too, is not something that is foreign to scientific practice. Academic turf-protection is not something I care much about. My interest is in how you justify knowledge claims, and the methods employed in all of these disciplines strike me as instances of applied common sense, to borrow Thomas Huxley's definition of science.
Defining science this broadly still excludes a great many proposed routes to knowledge, routes, mind you, that many people try hard to defend. There are distinctively religious ways of knowing, such as religious experience, the testimony of holy texts, or the teachings of religious authorities, that are ruled out as illegitimate. Also ruled out are things like oral traditions, folk wisdom, hunches, intuition, gossip or the various pseudosciences that people sometimes advocate. So this is not an issue of “Science is the only reliable route to knowledge” becoming true by definition or anything like that. It captures something important about how we defend knowledge claims, and it is something that needs to be said from time to time in the face of relentless attacks against science and reason.
Some people have suggested that we should just say “reason-based inquiry” or some such, instead of science. I don't really have a problem with that; it just seems unnecessary to me. But whatever. It seems clear to me that we are just arguing about the meanings of words now, and not about anything important.
(Incidentally, just to head-off another way this discussion can quickly descend into trivia, I would note that there is a practical, everyday sort of knowledge that is established by means that would not generally be considered scientific. If the fellow in the next office tells me the faculty meeting is at 2:00, I can reasonably claim to know that the meeting is at 2:00. But in a scientific context proofs by authority are out of bounds. Once again, if this is the refutation of scientism then no one is guilty of scientism.)
An approach fundamentally different from anything I considered in my previous post comes from Paul Paolini in this post. He writes:
My view is that if scientism does not reside in the content of certain beliefs then it must reside in reasoning that relates to a certain class of beliefs. In particular, I believe that scientism, rather than adherence to specific pro-science beliefs, is a kind of flawed reasoning that relates to pro-science beliefs as a class. This flawed reasoning consists generally, I think, in unjustified inferences from pro-science beliefs to beliefs in general. To be more precise, if this view is correct then the "enthusiasm" of scientism is manifested not by extremeness of positions about science but in a lack of rigor in reasoning about the significance of science.
We may sharpen this account with the notion of a scientistic belief; here I use the word 'scientistic' as simply an adjectival form of the noun 'scientism.' We shall say that a belief is scientistic just in case it is falsely justified by a pro-science belief; that is, if a belief appeals to a pro-science belief that does not in fact warrant it, then that belief is scientistic. Note that pro-science beliefs may themselves be scientistic, though they need not be. Also note that any belief that is justified by a scientistic belief is thereby also scientistic, even if the relation of justification connecting the two beliefs is sound. This means that a scientistic belief's false justification can be mediated by other scientistic beliefs.
How about some examples of what might be called scientistic inferences? Below, while the premises are pro-science beliefs that may or may not be scientistic, the conclusions are scientistic beliefs that may or may not be overtly pro-science.
[Premise] Science is the greatest authority on human knowledge.
[Conclusion] If science says that consciousness does not exist, non-scientists should simply accept it.[P] Science has been far more successful than the humanities in improving human life.
[C] Resources should be directed away from the humanities toward science.[P] Science provides the truth about reality while religions do not.
[C] The scientific worldview should be preferred to any religious worldview.In conclusion, what I like about this view of scientism as the phenomenon of scientistic belief, beyond its seeming to be a view that works, is that it divests the act of charging someone with scientism of anti-science connotations, renders the charge of scientism neutral on substantive debate regarding the merits of science -- and questions of substantive truth generally -- and clarifies the charge of scientism as a relatively simple and objective charge of flawed reasoning.
There's a lot to mull over here, but since I don't want to belabor an already lengthy post I'll just make a quick, general comment. Jerry Coyne has already responded in more detail.
My problem with Paolini's definition is that it seems like a trivialization of the term “scientism.” When you accuse someone of being in thrall to an “--ism,” you usually have something more in mind than the claim that he made a bad argument. Referring to an “ism” suggests that the person is not merely mistaken, but mistaken precisely because he adheres to a blinkered and erroneous view of the world. In Paolini's account, by contrast, you are guilty of scientism the moment you make a certain sort of fallacious inference, with no reference to any broader worldview. I don't see why we need a special epithet for people who make bad arguments starting from pro-science propositions. Just criticize the argument and be done with it.
Time to wrap this up, so I will close with this. The really important thing, as I see it, is that religion be denied any status as a legitimate way of knowing. After that, everything else is a detail.
Anthony McCarthy:
Occam's razor is amply supported by science. It works. That's clear. And science appropriates what works. That's why it is now part of science (regardless of the fact that it is named after a theologian, who, IIRC wasn't actually the first to state it anyhow).
Anthony, if I told you that yesterday I had been visited by a delegation of aliens from the planet Zog -- for the first and only time in our history and thus a "unique event" -- would you really maintain that you had no way of evaluating the likelihood that my statement was true, as oppose to me just making the story up?
Good Lord, colesblog, if you're going to bring aliens into it you should know I've written about the absurdity of Hawking, Dawkins, and Sagan's statements about "other life" and, yes, "aliens". There isn't the first bit of evidence that there is "other life" anywhere.
Maybe you should go have a talk with your atheist pals about what they've said about them instead of falsely implying I think they're regular visitors looking to get lucky or something.
You cannot possibly have read the paper and understood its full implications.
What is the empirical universe, if not data that can be studied by the scientific method?
Anthony, I don't have to tell you anytyhing about my beliefs, because: a) they're irrelevant to this conversation; b) my statements here can stand on their own merits without reference to any pantheon; c) I'm under no obligation to answer to a lying wanker like you in personal matters; d) I don't believe there's a Hell you'd go to if you didn't convert to my beliefs; and e) I don't have to let you change the subject after you've been proven wrong in everything you've said.
What part of science has disposed of Zeus?
The part that finds absolutely zero evidence to indicate that he exists.
You cannot possibly have read the paper and understood its full implications.
That's par for the course for Anthony. We're talking about someone who launched into a full-throated critique of a paper's methods after reading accounts of the findings in the popular press and then glnacing at the abstract. He had no idea what a "Materials and Methods" section was, or why it was relevant.
"Owlmirror", where in that paper is there scientific validation for Occam's razor? I looked at it and only saw that they'd come up with a mathematical expression they asserted was a formal statement of it. I'm kind of pressed for time this afternoon or I'd try to deduce a connection to that and spreadsheet wizardry. But, I think you know what I'm getting at.
Tlaz, if you're going to use sockpuppets, don't give it away by using phrases you've used in the same context on three blogs, by my memory. You can give the same advice to your best buddy who I've also caught doing the same thing.
I'm saving this thread as a specimen of the demonstrated erudition about science and logic among the new atheists. What do you think, Jason? Would it pass muster in a class as rigorous reasoning?
Oh, and as to being lazy, I forgot to mention that Tlaz said that what she thought I'd said, but which Richard Feynman said was evidence of my ignorance of science. And I do still have that link, Tlaz. So, we can see how well Tlaz can tell the sciency from the scientific illiterate.
I'm shaking in my 'boots.'
I've been watching this thread for over a week...haven't commented on it until today, and don't comment on blogs except using this nym. Sock puppets? You're imagining ghosts. Science can't explain it!
But you still haven't answered the questions of anybody in this thread, you just bring up some new shiny argument that doesn't hold together. And hey, when I see somebody who doesn't know what a Methods section is, that's pretty much a tell as to scientific illiteracy in any meaningful sense.
"Owlmirror", where in that paper is there scientific validation for Occam's razor?
We already answered that question, you stupid asshalo.
I'm saving this thread as a specimen of the demonstrated erudition about science and logic among the new atheists.
Another childish bluff (or should I say flounce?) from a childish authoritarian charlatan. You clearly lost the argument in its entirety, none of your lame attempts to change the subject worked, you've been shown up as a pompous, empty, shambling pseudointellectual fraud (again), but you're gonna "save" this thread (like you have the option of deleting it? Please), and show some other audience, at another unspecified time, how you were right all along, and we'll all be sorry we crossed you. You've lost every argument you get into on SB, but you're gonna win the next one hands down? Grow the fuck up.
What do you think, Jason? Would it pass muster in a class as rigorous reasoning?
It would, at the very least, serve as a good example of the persistent dishonesty and willful ignorance with which the anti-rational religious community responds to skepticism and rational inquiry.
Anthony McCarthy:
Why Anthony, anyone might think that you are avoiding the question. Here it is again: Anthony, if I told you that yesterday I had been visited by a delegation of aliens from the planet Zog -- for the first and only time in our history and thus a "unique event" -- would you really maintain that you had no way of evaluating the likelihood that my statement was true, as oppose to me just making the story up?
Well, yes, there is evidence: the fact that (1) there is life here, and (2) there are similar conditions elsewhere is evidence (though not proof). But anyhow, that's irrelevant to the above question. Care to attempt it?
Stupid Anthony, I didn't imply anything such. Now, care to attempt the question?
I've been watching this thread for over a week...haven't commented on it until today, Tlaz
Uh, huh. I see. I wonder if you've been blathering about it at Eschaton as you did during that brawl I mentioned above. Perhaps some of your good buddies are also here undercover. Hi.
colesblog, 1. produce the math you would use to be able to shove that claim of an alien visit into science. 2. send your paper to a reputable journal. 3. in the seeming unliklihood that it passes by the referees as anything but a spoof and is published. 4. stand by for the feedback from the relevant scientific communities. Though why you don't use the example I mentioned of The Virgin Birth, as it is claimed by those who believe in it, to produce your "science" I wonder. What kind of mathematics would you use to come up with the probability of a one-time miracle happening in the human species? Jason, you have any suggestions as to how that could be done, as I asked on this blog several years back?
I've got no one problem with someone believing in flying saucers as long as they aren't cheating people out of money over it. I'm not bothered by casual eccentricity, not when there's so much wackiness among the self-appointed defenders of science.
I've argued with neo-atheists more than enough to know that their pulling out the flying saucers, unicorns, elves, fairies and Zeus in an attempt to discredit their opponents by trying to associate them with pseudo-science (perhaps of a "Pagan" variety with the unicorns and elves) is an unvarying feature of these brawls. Maybe I could do a statistical analysis of a valid selection of blog brawls of this type to see how likely it is that one will feature at least one of those canards. That means "duck" Tlaz, if you need another alias.
AMC @475:
With 100% philosophical certainty? No part has. Like fairies in the garden or invisible dragons in the garage, the two different claims of divine birth are rejected tentatively, with that rejection subject to revision.
But the point of bringing up these examples is that they are equivelant. Inductively equally justified beliefs. Believing in one divine birth because its not-disproven while rejecting another because 'not-disproven' isn't a good enough reason for belief is irrational; you should either tentatively accept all of them, or tentatively reject all of them.
To parahprase Stephen Roberts, we are all skeptics of divine births; I'm just skeptical of one more of them than you. When you understand why you reject Alexander's claim, you will understand why I reject the Bible's.
I'm posting comments held for moderation at a new blog.
http://thinkingcriminalslair.blogspot.com/
eric, tlaz, colesblog
Don't bother with the e-mail, I've stopped using it due to troll spam.
Where in Jason's posts on Euler's identity is the validation for Euler's identity? The two posts, taken together, are the validation.
The entire paper -- all of the concepts; everything they reference -- is the validation for Occam's razor. The fact that you don't understand it all is irrelevant, any more than a failure to understand all of the math in Jason's posts is irrelevant to the point that eiÏ+1=0.
That's OK. You can devote the copious spare time you have free from not needing to validate immaterialism to studying up on information theory.
I think you have no idea what you're talking about.
Richard Feynman said there was evidence of your ignorance of science? Extraordinary!
I'm intrigued by this evidence that you were just as ignorant at least 24 years ago or so as you are now.
A link, yet! To Richard Feynman saying there was evidence of your ignorance of science?
Please, post it!
Raging Bee, why are you so reluctant to tell all your Scienceblog friends about your Paganism? Are you ashamed of it?
Eric, we are all born skeptics of science, since we have to be convinced of every single part of it. Stephen Roberts' insight is rather banal in its obviousness.
Though, as mentioned way above, no less an authority than Sean Carroll was obliged to admit that science doesn't have an comprehensive and exhaustive knowledge of even one object in the universe. Despite the pretensions of the, no doubt profitable, quest for a Theory of Everything, science doesn't even have everything about one thing, never mind the universe. With that in mind, God is held to be omnipotent, omniscient, and infinite. No person could possibly have a comprehensive view, in light of that so no one can even comprehend that God. If that is accurate then no one can really believe in God, they might be able to believe in part of God but they couldn't believe in all of God, not to mention come to anything like an adequate conception of God.
Where in Jason's posts on Euler's identity is the validation for Euler's identity? "Owlmirror"
My but you seem to have given up on that paper's proof awfully easily. Did you just read it for the first time?
Ah, but you miss a point, Occam's razor is about things other than mathematical reasoning. In its use by the sci-rangers here, it's about things in the natural universe and, by illogical extension, their desire to apply it outside of the natural universe. When you do that you need more than to come up with a mathematical proof of it, you have to demonstrate it with evidence. As with the gazillions of "universes" of M-theory, you can balance all the equations you want to, that doesn't mean there's any there, there.
I guess you're not just ignorant of science, you're ignorant of logic, too. You just committed the committing the logical fallacies of argument from ignorance and non sequitur.
You've refused to define the immaterial. Can you try defining "omnipotent, omniscient, and infinite"?
So how do you know -- or even think -- that you can know that God is "omnipotent, omniscient, and infinite"? If God weren't omnipotent, or omniscient or infinite, how would you know?
So you've just shot your "omnipotent, omniscient, and infinite" argument in the foot. Bravo! Well done! You lose by self-refutation!
Just like every other apologist.
You just committed the committing the logical fallacies of argument from ignorance and non sequitur. "Owlmirror"
Elucidate your point about me committing the fallacy of "argument from ignorance", when I was citing ignorance as a reason for people not knowing something.
Where's the non sequitur?
You folks have got to stop using Carl Sagan as a logic textbook. You've got the phrases pat but your application, yeesh! The language of formal logic isn't a security blanket and a thumb to suck when you're feeling insecure.
Yes, you did.
Did you read any of it at all?
If "other things" -- such as everything in the empirical universe -- cannot be understood using logic and math, they cannot be understood at all.
It's illogical of you to posit that the natural universe has an outside. Where is this outside? What does "outside" even mean? How do you know that it's there?
The proof is the evidence. Go ahead, prove that it's not.
Which is why cosmologists are actually looking for empirical evidence! See, they're less lazy than you are.
coelsblog wrote:
Well, like I said earlier, there are hagfish out there who envy Anthony his sliminess.
Oh, and to answer your question, Anthony, the main reason I didn't respond earlier â well, apart from the fact your questions have been answered in this thread numerous times, by several different posters; a courtesy, I might add, you've neglected to extend to any of us â is that I'm in Australia, and was therefore asleep.
Or does your demented anti-rationalism mean you deny the existence of a spherical earth as well?
Out of curiosity, in your definition, what makes one an "authority"? It appears you are enamored with that role, and my interest is somewhat piqued. How does one gain this lofty achievement? Does infallibility come with that?
I dunno, Zeus is often thwarted by actions of the other Gods, Thor has Loki to contend with, heck even that Yhwh character has needed to reset the table once or twice. Omnipotence doesn't seem to be what it was, and infinite, well that just marketing puffery.
Are you not arguing that because people don't know everything, there exists an invisible person with magical superpowers that is "omnipotent, omniscient, and infinite"?
If you're not, you're committing the logical fallacy of argument by fiat.
Regardless of whether you're arguing from ignorance or fiat, positing that an invisible person with magical superpowers that is "omnipotent, omniscient, and infinite" exists doesn't follow from anything.
What does Carl Sagan have to do with you not knowing what you're talking about? Did he say that he has evidence that you are ignorant of logic? Can you post a link?
Wowbagger, you must have missed the link where I posted my answer to colesblog. That is if you actually understand the accusation instead of just parroting things your buddies have said, or should I say "horsing around"?
You really believe that equations alone are adequate to address the physical universe, without physical evidence? I rest my case on the sci-rangers not knowing the first thing about science. And my point about new atheism being the home of neo-scholasticism as science.
AMC:
Yes, yes, science is imperfect, flawed, and limited. Yawn. You still haven't given any good reason why I should give your chosen bit of immateria more credence than the fairies in my garden.
I agree that science has the problem of induction. You can stop repeating that it does, endlessly. We get it. Now, tell us why we should accept your unproven-but-not-philosophically-impossible sprite A, in all his incomprensible majesty, while rejecting unproven-but-not-philosophically-impossible sprites B-Z, when the evidence for sprites A through Z is the same?
Anthony McCarthy wrote:
Held by whom? How do you know whether this is anything more than an unfounded assertion? If you don't know that it's not anything more than an unfounded assertion, why would you even mention it?
"Owlmirror" quote me in that comment arguing for the existence of God. Like eric and colesblog, you purposely ignore parts of what is said because it doesn't suit you. Here's what I said about "God" in that comment, with capitals and bolding for emphisis:
With that in mind, God IS HELD to be omnipotent, omniscient, and infinite. No person could possibly have a comprehensive view, IN LIGHT OF THAT so no one can even comprehend THAT GOD . IF THAT IS ACCURATE then no one can really believe in God, they might be able to believe in part of God but they couldn't believe in all of God, not to mention come to anything like an adequate conception of God.
I was arguing from a given point of view, not asserting that the point of view was accurate.
Kids. What has happened to liberal education in the English speaking world?
They already know about my paganism, dumbass. They also know I never lied or tried to discredit rational inquiry to make my religion look credible.
So why are you so desperate to change the subject? Are you suddenly ashamed of the crap you've been spouting here? Are you suddenly more ashamed when faced by a Pagan who doesn't have to be as dishonest as you are?
I'd like to say that seldom have I been witness to so much dishonesty in argument as the new atheists are showing this afternoon, but I have watched Republicans debating.
Who was it who pointed out that the materialists are, basically, right wingers with a few personal kinks?
I'll answer again when someone says something honest and interesting.
Raging Bee's clearly ashamed of her faith. Do you paint yourself blue? Do you try to call down the moon? Perform secret rites? What is it that you do that makes you a "Pagan" or is it just a style choice because it makes you feel groovy?
Of course not. No-one here does. That would be something stupid, like your "immaterialism",
So you were arguing that theists are wrong? Then why did you preface it with all that about scientists not knowing everything? It's still a non-sequitur.
Were you ever able to write coherently or cogently, or have you just started having these language failures recently?
Maybe your immaterial mind is being eaten by an immaterial Mind Flayer.
Anthony McCarthy wrote:
Feel free to cite the post where I made that claim. Go on, I dare you.
How, precisely, are Raging Bee's religious views any less valid than those you've been arguing can be held (and justifiably so) by those who believe - without any evidence to support that belief beyond 'other ways of knowing' - in an 'omnipotent, omniscient, and infinite' god?
Are you so lacking in perception that you don't realise you're now completely contradicting yourself?
Wowbagger, all I know about Raging Bee is that it's an angry, ignorant sci-groupie, well, another one of those, who has called itself a "Pagan". It could be one of your sockpuppets, which might explain its inability to talk about Paganism. I was testing that idea, not making fun of Paganism. I think Bee is a sock puppet just as "Owlmirror" and "wow" almost certainly are. You get jumped by the neo-athes enough, you start noticing identical phrasing.
Anthony McCarthy wrote:
Even it that was true - which is quite obviously isn't; their styles aren't even vaguely similar - that wouldn't change the fact that if Raging Bee was a pagan, it's hypocritical of you to decry her religious beliefs when you've been arguing that religious beliefs are immune from criticism because 'other ways of knowing' are valid sources of knowledge.
In other words, all Raging Bee needs to do to defeat you is claim 'other ways of knowing' as the reason why she does what she does, and you're stuck.
Or are you saying that some religious beliefs can be subject to criticism? If so, which - and why?
The only one talking about Paganism here, is you. Just because you're obsessed with it doesn't mean everyone else is.
Including Pagans, come to think of it.
Are Raging Bee and I supposed to be sockpuppets of the same puppeteer, or different ones?
Whose sockpuppet am I supposed to be?
It's true that your intellectual dishonesty and idiocy are easily refuted by phrases short enough to be usable by anyone. What exactly do you have in mind?
If Jason posted saying that we all have distinct IP addresses, would that satisfy your raging paranoia? Or is Jason included in your raging paranoia?
Would anything satisfy your raging paranoia?
I don't see Raging Bee disavowing its claims made to me on a couple of other blogs that it's a "Pagan".
Does it hold with sacrificing 9 of every animal, including people to Odin, I can't remember, was it every nine years? Or every year? Odin's a Pagan god. How about murdering a slave girl so she can be the "wife" of a ruling class thug? That's another thing those particular Pagans did. Does "Raging Bee" hold with that?
I'm pretty sure that the owner of this blog has enough headaches without the sock puppets accusing him of having one on his own blog.
Owlmirror (sorry, "Owlmirror") asked (of Anthony McCarthy):
I doubt it. Remember, this is the person who claimed to have been banned from Pharyngula and his comments deleted - despite never appearing on the 'dungeon' list and his comments still showing on the threads; then, after having this pointed out to him, he insisted that PZ must have reinstated them in order to make him look bad, which would have also meant checking each individual comment in those threads to ensure any that referred to post numbers (which change when deletions/insertion occur) were altered to maintain continuity.
Raging paranoia indeed.
You're sounding a lot like JR. "Wowbagger".
1. I've been over that big of blog atheist lore enough times, though I'll provide the link and the quotes on provocation. Including where I told him that his fan boys would always regurgitate it because they're really not that Bright.
2. Imagine the nerve of someone saying that Myers does what he so proudly and cruelly does, ban people from his blog, Though he hides behind his pznut gallery because he's essentially all bluff and bluster and not much else.
But you're off topic, "Wowbagger".
Anthony McCarthy wrote:
But, according to everything you've been arguing for in this thread, if Raging Bee (sorry, "Raging Bee") claims this is what she needs to do according to what she's learned via 'other ways of knowing', how can she be wrong to believe this?
I was asking "Raging Bee" what its "Paganism" consists of. For a bunch of opponents of superstition and religion you folks are oddly lacking in curiosity about someone's asserted "Paganism". Considering some of the things that are classfied as "Pagan", including a number of the things you guys are always trying to insert into these discussions, "elves" which I've certainly not mentioned, just in the last couple of hours, I'm curious to know why "RB" is all hands off when you can't stop distorting what other people say in order to imply things vaguely paganish to them.
Which reminds me of another, my longest blog brawl with PZ"s fan boys when they objected to my Great Skepticism. Maybe I should write it up, it could be lots of fun.
"proudly and cruelly"?
Has anyone denied that PZ bans people from his blog?
While it's true that PZ bans assholes from his blog, and you are a proud and cruel asshole, it doesn't follow that you are necessarily one of the assholes banned from his blog.
Unless... you were one of the assholes using a pseudonym, whose pseudonym was banned.
So, which one were you? Please, tell us, and set the record straight that you were indeed banned from PZ's blog.
You're the one who changed the topic to be about your paranoia.
"Owlmirror", your best friend won't tell you, so I will. You are blithering. As usual.
But the only one accusing people of being a sockpuppet is you!
Wait, are you confessing to being a sock puppet, too?
That would explain so much!
=======
Where was this? Were you using a pseudonym? Did you use sockpuppets? Who, exactly, is included in the term "fan boys"?
I'm sorry that you think that logic is blithering, but it does explain your own blithering idiocy,
Anthony McCarthy wrote:
If/when Raging Bee decides to argue the validity of her beliefs based on 'other ways of knowing' then she'll be asked the same questions we're asking of you - and which you, in all your oleaginous glory, have avoided time after time after time.
But you've still not answered the question, so I'll ask it again: if Raging Bee does claim to believe in things because of 'other ways of knowing', no matter what those beliefs are, is she - in your opinion - wrong for accepting that as a reason? If so, why?
This is such a great display of the erudition of the new atheists. I think it's such a perfect example of the ignorance, bigotry, pretension and shallowness of the fad that I'll copy it for further reference and put it away as material for a future post.
Anthony McCarthy wrote:
You'd better take out all of your own comments, then, Anthony; anyone reading the entire thread with them included is probably going to come away with the opinion most people who've encountered you online have of you: that you're a profoundly intellectually dishonest coward of the worst kind; a slimy, disingenuous sneak and bald-faced pathalogical liar - and, if this particular thread is anything to go by, one who's starting to come apart at the seams.
Be sure to include this next comment from me in your 'future post', Anthony.
Because in this thread along you've failed to answer straightforward questions asked over and over again; you've posted incoherent screeds irrelevant to the topic at hand, often including long non-sequitur cut-and-pastes of others' writings; you've ranted about non-existing sock-puppets and raged about being conspired against by blog-owners â and then, to top it off, after making dozens of posts defending religious beliefs gained via 'other ways of knowing' you've mocked as foolish someone else's religious beliefs, simply because that person happens to disagree with you on another issue.
I honestly have no idea how your head doesn't literally explode from all the confusion that's so obviously taking place in your mind.
Will you at least link back to the original thread so that people can see exactly who was really being ignorant, bigoted, pretentious, and shallow, or will you compound your intellectual dishonesty and utter assholishness by quote-mining and lying about what was actually written, and leaving no way for anyone to see the actual context?
Just curious.
AMC:
I was not ignoring parts of what you said about God; my argument is that all* the various conceptions of gods and other immaterial beings are equally well empirically justified at the moment, since there's no evidence of any of them. Your complaints about the limitations of science might protect some conceptions of immaterial beings from scientific investigation, but they do not give you any justification for believing any one of those protected conceptions is more likely than any other. Thus, you can protect your dragon from investigation by saying its invisible, but you still have the problem of justifying why you believe in dragon and not pixie, Zeus, or Yahweh. Or vice versa.
*Excluding any logically self-contradictory conceptions. Those can be addressed via deduction and so there's no real need to address them inductively.
eric wrote:
Ah, but clever Anthony has an out for that; you see, they're not his beliefs (funnily enough, he's never answered the question about what he, personally, does or doesn't believe), he's just arguing about what someone else believes, and if you want to challenge that, you have to take it up with them.
Well, we do have a few statements.
Here's one @#367 above:
I don't happen to be a Catholic, I don't happen to be a Christian.
So we know at least one thing he's not. No Trinitarianism in the McCarthyverse. No crackers from Jesus.
Wowbagger, I have said what I believe, your fellow bit of hosiery quoted it above. Not that it will prevent you from lying.
It might be the reason I do this. Seeing how dishonest you guys have to be to defend your faith always encourages me that it's even more shallow and baseless than I'd originally assumed.
Eric, look above when I asked you if you are 12.
Despite the pretensions of the, no doubt profitable, quest for a Theory of Everything, science doesn't even have everything about one thing, never mind the universe. With that in mind, God is held to be omnipotent, omniscient, and infinite.
"Science doesn't know everything, therefore GOD?!" That's easily one of the top ten most ridiculous non-sequiturs I've ever heard. Even if we accept your premise (and we have good reasons not to, which I won't bother explaining tonight), the conclusion not only doesn't follow -- it isn't even connected in any way at all. I could just as plausibly say "H.L. Mencken wasn't right about everything, therefore Herbert Hoover's policies were always right."
The least I can say for most sleazy con-artists is that they know they have to work to sound plausible, otherwise they don't get paid. You, Anthony, are too insecure, and too full of yourself, even to clear that low bar. No wonder you suddenly feel this burning need to talk about my religion -- you need to run away from your BS without admitting you're running away.
I think it's such a perfect example of the ignorance, bigotry, pretension and shallowness of the fad that I'll copy it for further reference and put it away as material for a future post.
Yeah, yeah, you said that already, and it doesn't sound convincing no matter how many times you say it. What sort of response were you expecting -- grovelling apologies? Go to bed.
@#474, you mean? Are you standing by that?
I wonder, what would prevent you from lying, and confusing not being intimately and immediately familiar with every word of a 500+ comment thread with lying?
Huh. Weird. That exactly what everyone who isn't you might have written about your blitherings.
LOL, immaterialism.
Anthony McCarthy wrote:
What, that vague, non-specific, ripe-for-later-equivocation drivel about what you don't 'happen' to be? If you'd left out the weasel-words I might believe you; as it is, it's quite obvious you're leaving a loophole that you can can use to ooze your way out of if necessary.
I don't think he meant me, but rather Raging Bee. I know it's hard to tell; I thought he meant me and my post at first as well. When he's feeling more assholish than usual, he becomes even more vague and incoherent and obfuscatory.
See @#474, which has a creed, much like the Apostle's or Nicene, but without Jesus and with immaterialistic incoherence.
(Of course, if you were my sockpuppet, or Raging Bee's, you should have realized that!)
I wonder if Anthony McCarthy is a sockpuppet of (stupid trolling wanking) Robert O'Brien? Maybe that's why he claimed to be banned at Pharyngula!
AMC:
The only thing this communicates to me is that you probably don't have a solution to the equivalency problem I mentioned first in the bottom half of @479. By claiming we can't study your preferred immaterial phenomena, you've made it equivalent to all the other unstudyable immaterial objects people have posited over the years.
You're going to find it difficult to argue that your immaterial object is more credible than any other claimed immaterial object as long as you say no empirical evidence for it can exist. But maybe you're up to that challenge - I've asked you several times for a positive case for your immaterial object, and despite the insult am still happy to listen to your positive case if you want to present it.
"Immaterialism is not a positive case theory, and itâs not immaterialismâs task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling positive case stories."
Heh.
Actual words from the McCarthyverse: "I believe it is an act of idolatry to turn some human conception of God into a mere thing that can be subjected to science."
If what Raging Bee posted in #474 is an accurate description of what Anthony believes, I'd like to see him acknowledge that - in an unambiguous way.
My bet is that he won't, and will claim he only wrote that at the time because it suited the argument he was making against someone who adheres to a different flavour of woo from his own.
Jason, how about them new atheists!
You proud of their demonstrated knowledge and mastery of honest intellectual discourse as demonstrated in this thread? You ready for the low level neo-scholasticism they want to replace science with?
Someone tell PZ I'm going to write up the two or three blog brawls I've had in which he's the topic so I'll be able to just link to them when JR or Wowbagger or one of the other frequently encountered neo-athes and their sock puppets rolls it out again, as I predicted they would back when it all started. I'm sure he'll find the one about my Great Skepticism over his Great PR Stunt lots of fun. As will his critics.
Dear Anthony McCarthy, rather unaccountably you seem to have overlooked replying to my question. So here it is as a reminder:
Anthony, if I told you that yesterday I had been visited by a delegation of aliens from the planet Zog -- for the first and only time in our history and thus a "unique event" -- would you really maintain that you had no way of evaluating the likelihood that my statement was true, as oppose to me just making the story up?
That's your position re Mary's virgin-birth claim, isn't it? You're saying that since it is postulated as a unique event we have no way of sensibly assessing the likelihood of the assertion. So, am I correct that you'd say exactly the same about my claimed visitation from the planet Zog?
coelsblog, I answered you yesterday, going to the bother of starting up a new blog when it was being held in moderation so you could see that I'd answered you. As you can see at 513 above. Perhaps you missed that among the attacks of the sock puppets.
Show me how you would come up with the mathematical probability of that being true if you are going to assert that's possible. Since you and your sci-pals have been asserting the supremacy of science for this entire discussion, show us how you could show it's probability with your one and only means of producing valid knowledge. If you use any other kinds of arguments they fail as valid knowledge by the standard of scientism.
I will admit that even having reviewed that branch of mathematics a couple of years back, I don't see any way of determining the probability of The Virgin Birth for the reasons I've already stated. It is claimed to be unique in all of human history and it will never happen again, it is claimed to be by other than natural means and so is not like any birth in the natural world, there is no physical evidence at all to subject to the methods of science. If you're going to believe or disbelieve it you'll have to do it with something other than science or mathematics. As I also pointed out, history can address it and has which is what I base my conclusion on.
In that context, I'd call your claim to be able to do that rather extraordinary. If you can do it, by the standard you and your sciency buddies insist is the only valid one, it's up to you to show us how. Go on, show us. I've been challenging new atheists to do that for several years, ever since I wrote a post about Dawkins' claim that the question of The Virgin Birth was able to be addressed by science and I realized he was full of malarkey when he said it, just as he was on a number of other occasions. It's a good window into his understanding of science and, frankly, I'm very unimpressed.
Oh, let me also mention that I've heard several working geneticists I know with much more scathing things to say about Richard Dawkins' competence in science. Absolutely merciless, they were.
Anthony McCarthy:
No, Anthony, you mean you gave an evasive non-answer. And since you ask me how science would deal with it it is quite easy: Known alien visitations are vastly rarer than known examples of humans making up stories. Therefore the overwhelming likelihood (absent any strong evidence for the visitation claim) is that I made it up (Occam's razor again). Oh, and science would say the same about Mary's supposed virgin birth.
But what *science* would say about it is irrelevant to my question which was what ***you*** would say about it.
If I told you that yesterday I had been visited by a delegation of aliens from the planet Zog -- for the first and only time in our history and thus a "unique event" -- would **you** really maintain that **you** had no way of evaluating the likelihood that my statement was true, as opposed to me just making the story up?
Your non-answering is revealling about your lack of a coherent stance, your lack of honesty, and your lack of a clue.
coelsblog, I answered you. I don't see any way of determining the probability of a single alleged alien visit. I don't happen to believe it's happened but I can't say I know it hasn't and my skepticism is not based on science or mathematics, it's based on nothing much more than personal disposition.
Given that the context of your subject changing to aliens was my assertion that The Virgin Birth, as stated by those who believe it couldn't be handled by science or mathematics and, least you forget, the theme of this blog thread, I challenged you to back up your contention with the only methods for knowing something you and your buddies have been asserting for going on 600 comments, now.
You can't do it or you would. When put to the test your scientism fails. Period. Which was my point about the idiotic assertion that The Virgin Birth and purported miracles with similar characteristics not being susceptible to being investigated with science. Though there are some, for which there is physical evidence, which can be looked at with science.
I could have gone into a lot of detail about the difference between something that it is asserted will happen only once in history, like The Virgin Birth is and something like an alien visit, which has been claimed many times as a complication in your subject changing attempt but that wouldn't have done more than confuse the very easily confused new atheists who are in such a hindrance to a rational discussion of these issues. It's my experience that they, like most fundamentalists, see what they want to see no matter how carefully you try to say what you really mean. And a number of them I've encountered are habitual liars. So much for their regard for truth and knowledge.
Someone tell PZ I'm going to write up the two or three blog brawls I've had...
So fucking what? You're going to "write up" something that's already been written and is already available for all to see? How is that supposed to impress PZ or anyone else? What kind of reaction are you expecting here -- you think PZ is suddenly going to beg Jason to delete this whole thread before you can archive it so we can all slink away and pretend we never crossed you?
This is the THIRD TIME you've trotted out that bluff, after being called on it twice before. You can't even bluff, let alone argue like a grownup.
BTW, I've never engaged in any form of sockpuppetry, except in rare instances that were obviously humorous, and obviously me. Nor, to my knowledge, has anyone else used the handle "Raging Bee" anywhere. I find it amusing -- in a make-fun-of-homeless-drunks sort of way -- that you only accuse me of sockpuppetry AFTER I've debunked your last lame-assed arguments. I eagerly await your next pathetic excuse to pretend I don't exist.
Oh, let me also mention that I've heard several working geneticists I know with much more scathing things to say about Richard Dawkins' competence in science.
Another empty assertion with no specific citations. Why am I not surprised? Also, do you really think that discrediting Dawkins would make any of your bullshit arguments more plausible?
When put to the test your scientism fails.
What about MY "scientism?" I also responded to your claims about the Virgin Birth (as if there's only one such story), and like the cowardly fraud you are, you completely ignored it because you know I'm right.
Raving Bee, you should go blither with your fellow sock puppet.
I wonder if some neo-atheist came up with the idea of using sock puppets to agree with what they said like the right-wing gun nut John Lott did.
http://crookedtimber.org/2005/05/10/john-lott-strikes-again/
And once they had the puppets, they found they had other uses.
Why does this remind me of the time Randi and Shermer, at the 'Amazing Meeting in 2005 advocated that "skeptics" could become media "experts", not through learning the difficult and exacting disciplines of mathematics and science, but merely by declaring themselves to be "experts"?
It's pretty clear that a lot of the self-appointed guardians of science here are stunningly ignorant of science, well, I am prepared to believe that some of them are in psychology or some other alleged science. Though I'm pretty confident that Bee isn't even that much of an "expert".
What about MY "scientism?" Raving Bee
I don't find "your scientism" to be worth discussing as it is so much lower in quality than that of coelsblog's or eric's or even some of your fellow socks. I think "your scientism" is better called "derangement", as with "Wowbagger".
It's pretty clear that a lot of the self-appointed guardians of science here are stunningly ignorant of science...
...says the guy who (among other obvious lapses) forgot about the role of pagan Greeks and Muslims in the invention of science.
I don't find "your scientism" to be worth discussing as it is so much lower in quality...
Keep telling yoruself that, boy; you're the only person you're fooling here.
I don't find "your scientism" to be worth discussing...
One moment you're pompously demanding I answer to you about my religion; next moment you're trying to brush me off and pretend I'm not worth your time. Do I really make you so scared that you can't even keep your bullshit talking-points from contradicting each other? What a ridiculous, overinflated joke.
I challenged Wowbagger to come up with an alternative list of the founders of science, Bee, it couldn't do it, perhaps knowing, as you and a number of others in this discussion obviously don't, what doesn't come up to the normal standards of science.
Hey, Jason, let us know, do you find Raging Bee's idea of "science" to match yours?
Forget what I said about Oral Roberts U, yesterday, what you don't know about science and logic could be the curriculum of a "college" As Seen on TV. Or the back of a match book.
AMC:
You might use personal disposition, but most of us use a qualitative form of induction. Without math, induction won't give you an absolute probability of your conclusion being true, but it can still tell you whether A is more likely than B, which is generally good enough to make decisions about which one to believe.
Like so: (1) I observe many people making up stories about alien visits. (2) I observe zero actual alien visits. (3) Since "many" is greater than "zero," the statement "I observe more instances of people lying about being visited by aliens than instances of people being visited by aliens" is a true statement, and consequently (4) I inductively conclude that "this is made up" is more likely than "aliens visited."
Since its an induction, its tentative and open to future revision. In fact there have been some pretty famous and spectacular failures of such qualitative induction (black swans for philosophy, meteorites for science, to mention two). But you can reach inductive conclusions without math.
And, of course, this same reasoning can be applied to virgin births, resurrections, or other miracles.
Anthony McCarthy:
Well, that's honest of you, but distinctly crackpot if you really think that my Planet Zog claim is as credible as the idea that I made it up.
I'd done it already (post 564): Known human virgin births are vastly rarer than known examples of humans making up stories. Therefore the overwhelming likelihood (absent any strong evidence for the virgin birth claim) is that it is made up. See? That was easy.
Excuse me, but lots of mythologies have claimed virgin births.
AMC:
Such detail is unnecessary. I already showed how we could inductively conclude that P(virgin birth) is lower than P(story's untrue). Since P(virgin birth AND its the only one in history) is less than or equal to P(virgin birth) by mathematical necessity, it is necessarily also lower than P(story's untrue).
Add conditions and details to your event, and the inductive conclusion that it's untrue becomes stronger. That seems counter-intuitive to a lot of people, but it's true.
"Excuse me, but lots of mythologies have claimed virgin births."
Heck, wasn't one of the Godesses of the Greeks "born" when Zeus' head was split open? Not only virgin, but not female to boot!
And Shakespeare had a man not of woman born in The Play Not To Be Mentioned.
"coelsblog, I answered you. I don't see any way of determining the probability of a single alleged alien visit."
Well, that's honest of you, but distinctly crackpot if you really think that my Planet Zog claim is as credible as the idea that I made it up. coelsblog
Well, that's dishonest of you to ignore that I didn't talk about your made up account but about any "single alleged alien visit". The problem of figuring out the probability of allegations of alien visit intended to be taken seriously aren't matched by yours, clearly not asserted to be more than a made up story for the purpose of this blog discussion.
That might be a subtle point but it's a real distinction in claims such as those you are defending about using science and probability to deal with real life claims. Real world problems aren't as easy as stories constructed by "skeptics" to knock down. Especially when they claim that something like scientific knowledge of those is possible when, in the abstract, only belief or disbelief is.
Known human virgin births are vastly rarer than known examples of humans making up stories. colesblog
Your problem is that it's possible to come up with as many instances of people making up stories as you want to, something that has been done in science, especially in the social "sciences"- and I recall providing some pretty scandalous examples here - it wouldn't necessarily make other, similar claims false and it wouldn't give you any way to determine the probability of those other claims being true or false. I can't remember a claim of science being debunked by other scientists merely on the basis of that kind claim about its probability. Do you know of any? Show me.
You see, just as with a conjurer being able to simulate something someone said, claiming that their demonstration MIGHT show you how someone could fake it in real life, that doesn't disprove that what they saw wasn't authentic.
And, conjurers being in the business of deception, often at a highly accomplished, paid, professional level of deceptive ability, you can't be any more certain of what they're showing you than you can of what they claim to reproduce. Who investigates the "skeptics", especially when they have a professional and financial interest in their "skepticism"? You have to catch the fake red-handed in order to show they're a fake. Which isn't a matter of science but more like detective work.
I'll take this opportunity to recommend reading the always interesting "Retraction Watch" blog.
http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/
"With that in mind, God is held to be omnipotent, omniscient, and infinite."
No he isn't.
He's a very naughty boy.
eric, demonstrate it or admit you can't, just as I challenged you to demonstrate your other claim in my comment posted on that new blog linked to above.
I'm quite willing to let Jason judge whether or not it meets the objections I raised about that possibility. I've asked others, who purported to be mathematicians, to do the same thing and none have taken up the challenge. While I would consider him a biased judge, I don't think he'd risk being deceptive about it in public. Though, I'll want to run that by a few more mathematicians if the arguments get too twisted to follow, and none of those can be by mere analogy but actually have to be directly relevant to the claims as laid out.
It seems to me that the belief in miracles relies on this statement of faith: God *can* produce miracles. *If* he felt like it.
Well, *I* have never felt like producing a miracle. But there's nothing says I couldn't.
Therefore, I'm God.
Anythony McCarthy:
Sure, and my above claim about vistors from Zog was indeed a "single alleged alien visit". So your claim that "I don't see any way of determining the probability of a single alleged alien visit." applies to my claim.
And as I said: it's distinctly crackpot if you really think that my Planet Zog claim is as credible as the idea that I made it up!
Oh I see, so now you are saying that you *can* evaluate claims of alien vists and that you *can* assess the likelihood that they are true as opposed to made up! Ooops, Anthony, you've flatly contradicated yourself now.
Coelsblog, here is what you said at 501 above:
Anthony, if I told you that yesterday I had been visited by a delegation of aliens from the planet Zog -- for the first and only time in our history and thus a "unique event" -- would you really maintain that you had no way of evaluating the likelihood that my statement was true, as oppose to me just making the story up?
You said from the start that your example would be a made up story made for the purposes of this argument. It wasn't a "single alleged alien visit," it was a bad, impromptu, analogy. Assuming you weren't being deceptive, and on my assuming your good faith, there is no reason to believe it's anything else. That's not the same as a story asserted to be true. If you had asserted it was true and gave details, there might be a way to check the details of your story to see if those plausibly happened or, if something was found, to try to figure out if it was plausible that it was the result of space folk making it here. But, as you propose it or without the ability to look at physical evidence, there isn't any way to know if it's probable or not.
Let me take this opportunity to point out that if those speedy neutrinos are really faster than the speed of light, that would have to change the probabilities that some exo-bio types have tried to figure out for alien visits. Lots of probabilities that have featured the, then obsolete, limit on possible speed as a factor would, possibly, be obsolete as well.
I take no position on that happening because, frankly, as I've already admitted, I, as just about everyone in this discussion, don't have the math or technical knowledge to understand the arguments about them. And, frankly, I don't much think there's anything I can do about it so I don't really care.
AMC:
Showing is nice when you can do it, but it isn't necessary to inductively disbelieve a con-artist's trick. You only need to assess based on past experience whether the likelihood of it being a trick is higher or lower than the likelihood of it being real. Zero observations of people actually flying under their own power. Many observations of stage magicians and hollywood faking it. Inductively conclude: yogic flying is fake. Tentatively and subject to future revision, of course.
Anthony McCarthy:
Umm, no I didn't. Nowhere did I say it wasn't true.
Nope, it was a very good analogy, one that now has you squirming and evading.
But you can't assume that, any more than you can assume it about the writer "Matthew" (whoever he was) who decided to sex up a story by adding in miraculous elements about a birth (just as the North Korean propagandists have done).
Just as there is no reason to think that the virgin birth is anything other than made up.
AMC's post 578 is basically him saying "prove that multiplying two numbers that are between 0.0 and 1.0 exclusive together produce a smaller number than any one of the numbers alone".
For his next demand, AMC will insist that eric prove that adding two positive nonzero numbers makes a larger positive number.
Forget what I said about Oral Roberts U, yesterday, what you don't know about science and logic could be the curriculum of a "college" As Seen on TV. Or the back of a match book.
So...you're saying the things I don't know about science would fit on a matchbook? Are you saying my knowledge of science is that complete and comprehensive? Or is your talent for analogies as pathetic as your talent for bluffing?
Just be sure you write that up for PZ's enlightment or whatever.
For his next demand, AMC will insist that eric prove that adding two positive nonzero numbers makes a larger positive number.
I'm guessing he'll insist that eric prove that simple arithmetic exists outside anyone's mind.
Also, I believe you were referring to comment #577. Not that it matters, since #577 is nothing but pure incoherent diversionary rambling. Now he's bringing stage-magic acts into the discussion? Why not add something about hedgehogs, crop-circles, and the price of tea in Baghdad? As long as he's going to be nothing but a relentles attention-seeking troll, why not try to make it mildly amusing and put a little dignity back into it?
AMC @579:
I am honestly unclear about what you want me to demonstrate. The mathematical probability of a single alien visit? No, AMC, I can't demonstrate that.
The point we keep making and which you seem to keep missing is that an absolute mathematical probability is not needed for a person to arrive at an inductive conclusion. Induction works just fine by considering past incidences of the possible explanations and ranking the ones that occur more often as more likely. Since the number of confirmed alien visits in my experience has been zero, the number of humans acting deceptively is greater than zero, I rank the alien visit explanation lower than the deceptive human explanation. Ditto virgin births.
Hmmm, I didn't consider that anyone would challenge me to demonstrate P(A&B) is less than or equal to P(A). Well, that one he can look up himself.
I take no position on that happening because, frankly, as I've already admitted, I, as just about everyone in this discussion, don't have the math or technical knowledge to understand the arguments about them. And, frankly, I don't much think there's anything I can do about it so I don't really care.
Yeah, that's pretty obvious from the get-go -- you don't know shit, all of your arguments are based on total ignorance, you don't know enough to judge how knowledgeable anyone else is, and you don't care enough to even look in a mirror and see whether anything you say even sounds plausible. So why the fuck are you wasting so much time here, with your shit-stained pants on your head, spouting ignorant bullshit about things you don't care about? To hog attention and pretend you're better than anyone else? To make up for the embarrassment of taking your infantile religion to college?
If what Raging Bee posted in #474 is an accurate description of what Anthony believes, I'd like to see him acknowledge that - in an unambiguous way.
So far, he's completely ignoring it. He knows he's been caught in a lie (again), and he doesn't have the guts to do anything other than run away and pretend it never happened. Just like every other religious con-artist who claims to be infallible.
Flesh it out, eric, show it matches the two cases you asserted you could show how science can be used in the two instances you have. Just coming up with a formula doesn't do that. Put it in terms a Bee could understand.
Raving Bee, more honestly, Nattering Gnat. OK, explain the arguments for and against neutrinos being measured as traveling faster than the established speed of light and why we should believe one of them. Go on, show us you understand those arguments. And then tell us, if the "faster than light" results begin to be noted yet again, what do you propose to do about it.
I suspect that most of a century of materialist claims made on behalf of the reliability of science, resting, in part, on that point, could quickly and tragically turn into a major fiasco of loss of credibility among the majority of the population, so scientists should be prepared to handle the aftermath if that finding turns out to be reliable. Which is why so many on the sci-blogs are rather panicky about it. Just as it could if Lawrence Krauss' ideas about black holes not forming turn out to be true or just as it could as they begin to notice that the promissory note of genome mania keeps coming up marked "unpaid" - quite literally.
I don't expect you'll understand any of that but I'm assuming someone might read might, possibly.
I'm still waiting, Bee. Explain the reason that they've concluded, twice, that they've observed neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light and give us the reasons that that isn't credible. Show us what you know that the folks that came up with the positive results, twice, don't know.
Or is it just going to be one more of the many, many times that you brilliant Bright "experts" are all bad-mouth and no substance.
Prove my intelligence to someone who's already admitted he neither knows nor cares what he's talking about? Fuck off, Anthony, you've already proven yourself a lying ignoramus, and every single one of your basic arguments have already been repeatedly debunked by myself and others; so you don't get to demand anything of anyone.
Demanding I talk about neutrinos as just as much a transparent, cowardly diversion as your earlier demand that I talk about my religion.
I suspect that most of a century of materialist claims made on behalf of the reliability of science, resting, in part, on that point, could quickly and tragically turn into a major fiasco of loss of credibility among the majority of the population, so scientists should be prepared to handle the aftermath if that finding turns out to be reliable.
Yeah, and when Obama turns out to be the Antichrist and the world ends with the skies on fire everywhere, this coming Winter Solstice, we'll all regret doubting your petulant little God, right? You're just another lazy escapist crybaby hiding from reality in apocalyptic end-of-everything fantasies. Seriously, grow the fuck up and get help.
Bee, you can't because what I said was true, you don't understand the evidence or the arguments made that they observed neutrinos traveling faster than the supposedly constant speed of light anymore than I do. You don't understand that or why it might be incorrect because you don't understand those arguments. Neither do I but I was honest enough to admit it and, unlike you and so many a blog atheist, I don't hold an opinion on that out of sheer ignorance.
And you don't understand what a major deal it would be for science or the huge blow that would be for the public acceptance of science. Richard Lewontin, reviewing that Sagan volume so many of you mistake to be a logic text book, warned about scientists overselling science and the disastrous consequences that could have. Only I don't think he anticipated something that could shake it this deeply. I think that if the very atheistic Lawrence Krauss is right about the impossibility of black holes forming, it could have an even more disastrous effect because those have been even more over sold than something as basic as the speed of light as a constant.
I don't believe your "Paganism" is any more but a pose. Given the number of times I've had elves and fairies thrown at me by your fellow neo-atheist bigots, I'm within my rights to question a professed "Pagan" who is so able to flitter around on these blogs without that happening to them. It's a question of basic integrity, or, rather, the lack of it among the you atheisty folk.
I got a new Fresnel lens, so I'm hoping there will be fewer typos.
My, my, first you try to pretend I'm not worth your time and you can ignore me, now you're desperately going out of your way to discredit me -- which doesn't exactly work AFTER I've shown the fallacies and falsehoods of nearly all of your anti-rationalist know-nothing arguments.
And you don't understand what a major deal it would be for science or the huge blow that would be for the public acceptance of science...
When has any major scientific revolution ever been a "huge blow" for the public acceptance of science? I don't recall any huge grass-roots rejection of physics when Einstein showed up.
I don't believe your "Paganism" is any more but a pose.
That's probably because your own religion is nothing but a pose, and you can't bear to imagine anyone having a more honest religion than your own.
Given the number of times I've had elves and fairies thrown at me by your fellow neo-atheist bigots, I'm within my rights to question a professed "Pagan" who is so able to flitter around on these blogs without that happening to them.
I can't speak for others on this, but I suspect that they don't throw stupid woo at me because -- unlike so many Christian bigots -- I don't throw stupid woo at them.
AMC:
Flesh what out? How one uses induction when you don't have mathematical probabilities to work with? I've given you examples of that in @573, @583, and @588. Coelsblog also did it in @574. I am really not sure how to be clearer. Can you point out the specific step you have a problem understanding? Is it determining potential explanations? Counting experiences? Assigning relative likelihood based on count?
If you're asking me to flesh out the P(A&B) thing, here you go: in probability calculations, AND functions are denoted by multiplication. P(A&B) = P(A)*P(B). When P(A) and P(B) are both real numbers between 0 and 1, their product is always smaller than either P(A) or P(B).
Eric, as I said to you yesterday:
If someone has a hypothesis about the "intention of God," we can certainly test to see if the world is consistent or inconsistent with it. eric
Tell me how you would test that any phenomenon in the physical universe happening as it does, happens by the intention of God, which was, by the way, exactly what Deists claimed to believe as well as theists, possible intervention into the normal operation of the universe being one of their points of disagreement. Tell me how you would use science to falsify the contention that the universe operates as it does by the intention of God.
Go on, eric, support your claim by telling us how you could test that point with science because science is something that is done and not just asserted. Or at least it's supposed to be that.
It is a claim of some religions, including this Deism stuff some of you are always going on about, that God is responsible for the normal operation of the universe, what science studies, as well as any "miracles" that happen(not Deists for that last one, though). How would you test that claim with science? How do you use the normal operation of the universe to dispel the idea that God is responsible for the normal operation of the universe? Taking into account that it is held that God is responsible for the normal operation of the universe. You asserted it could be tested, tell me how.
The other one is, of course, the probability of The Virgin Birth happening. Of course, since you want to get rid of what people who believe in TVB believe, you're going to have to take into account what they believe, that it happened, intentionally, by other than natural means, once in the entire history of the world and, so, it couldn't be compared to any other birth. And it has left no physical evidence for science to evaluate.
Show us how you would figure out the probability of that happening according to what is claimed without twisting it into something which isn't part of the claim to suit your purpose.
Raging Bee, still unwilling to shower us with your Brightest erudition on the question of the speedy neutrinos, huh? You ever considered anger management?
So...now you've given up trying to discredit science as a whole; and your next stunt is special pleading for your particular supernatural claims (but not anyone else's)? Jesus, boy, if you need to keep pestering us to validate your superstition, that's probably because you know it's bogus but can't bear to face up to it.
The other one is, of course, the probability of The Virgin Birth happening. Of course, since you want to get rid of what people who believe in TVB believe, you're going to have to take into account what they believe, that it happened, intentionally, by other than natural means, once in the entire history of the world and, so, it couldn't be compared to any other birth.
Don't forget the probability of Odin forging the hammer Mjollnir. That only (alegedly) happened once too, and can't be compared to any other hammer.
Oh, you've brought up Odin, you read what I asked you about that particular Pagan god last night? You hold with the Pagan practice, documented both in written documents and archaeology, of murdering a slave girl when one of the head thugs of that Pagan society died so she could have the wonderful experience of being his wife in a future life? Are you that kind of Pagan? And where do you stand on the elves and fairies question?
What makes you a Pagan instead of a phony Pagan or a nut case?
Okay, folks. I think this conversation has gone on quite long enough. Time to move on. Feel free to exchange e-mail addresses and continue this discussion in back channels.
Oh, you've brought up Odin, you read what I asked you about that particular Pagan god last night?
No, asshole, I brought up Odin to make a point about special pleading for one supernatural claim and not another. And you're squirming away and trying to change the subject, which proves you know you've lost the argument. Again.
You hold with the Pagan practice, documented both in written documents and archaeology, of murdering a slave girl when one of the head thugs of that Pagan society died so she could have the wonderful experience of being his wife in a future life?
Did I ever say I "held with" such a practice? Can't you at least make your non-sequiturs less predictable?