esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek) (11/20/84)
>>I'm getting sick of having my ideas labelled with newly invented or re-used >>"-isms". [RICH ROSEN] Then maybe you should stop having ideas that fit the labels so well? :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) I couldn't resist! :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) In an article I lost, Rich takes a passing shot at me for my response to Richard Carnes. Roughly, what Rich said was "for some unfathomable reason Paul Torek seems to think that taking an unbiased, nonjudgemental view of creationists' motives constitutes `scientism'." Well, Mr. Rosen, there you go again. Naturally you would describe Carnes's advocated approach as "unbiased"; I would describe it as something else entirely. I'd like to show the net just what Carnes said and why I reacted the way I did: From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) > It follows that scientists should not be surprised or indignant when > their scientifically cogent arguments fail to convince the creationists > ... [Scientists], of all > people, have the least reason to take a judgmental attitude toward human > behavior, since science is based on the belief that all phenomena in the > natural world can be rationally explained, including human behavior. > ... What I am saying is that we need to try to achieve a genuinely > *scientific* understanding of the creationist movement. Such an > understanding would eschew the use of judgmental, moralistic terms ... Translation: creationists cannot be held responsible for their behavior. No humans can be held responsible for their behavior, "since" [love that logic] it can be rationally explained. Rationally, behavior cannot be evaluated, only explained. That, I still maintain, is "scientism" at its worst. There are more things in science and nature than are dreamt of in that philosophy. From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) >In article <471@wucs.UUCP> esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek) writes: >>Before anyone can give a list of hypothetical counter-evidences, she must >>have a definition of "God" or "rising from the grave". > > Well, why not start with the gospel accounts, ... I am afraid I understated my own case. I think that as long as the definitions are specific enough, it will be clear what would count as evidence for or against! I don't want to stick my neck out too far, so I won't attempt to evaluate the evidence for or against the resurrection. As to what evidence would be needed, and some general guidelines I think should be used in evaluation, see below. >Yes, but in this case, there is no experiment in the first place. All we >have is eyewitness testimony, and we have no real way to evaluate its >reliability. I think it is possible to evaluate its reliability. We need to ask how truthful were the people of that time, how reliable their conditions of observation were, how reliable their memories, how reliable the translation and transcription processes were. These can be estimated by comparing with situations that we know something about. For example, we know that there are many conditions of observation which are unreliable (look at some of the "paranormal" research critiqued in Martin Gardner's book *Science: Good, Bad and Bogus*; or some of the tests by psychologists of people's accuracy in witnessing ordinary events -- not very encouraging). > Unfortunately, this common sense has to dictate that nature is uniform in > order to be able to allow us to apply our past observations to present and > future behavior. WIth this assumption, you cannot objectively evaluate > a claim that the natural order of the universe has been temporarily > violated. The problem remains the same. Now wait a second. What's the difference between saying "the natural order has been temporarily violated" and ascribing an unusual event to a new force or particle? Anyway, the latter hypothesis should be tested, if possible, by checking other implications of the hypothesis (if any). We must weigh the losses of each alternative explanation. The temptation to proliferation of hypotheses of new forces should be resisted precisely to the extent that it would cripple our ability to understand the world. If we say "it didn't happen" in the face of a lot of evidence, we may be raising our standards of evidence too high, which would also cripple our ability to understand the world. --Paul V. Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047 Please send any mail directly to this address, not the senders. Thanks.
kjm@ut-ngp.UUCP (Ken Montgomery) (11/26/84)
[] >[Paul V. Torek] >Now wait a second. What's the difference between saying "the natural order >has been temporarily violated" and ascribing an unusual event to a new >force or particle? Postulating a new particle requires that we assume that we were previously ignorant of it. This is a reasonable assumption, since we know that we have been ignorant of a lot of things. Postulating a temporary violation of the natural order, however, requires that we assume that the natural order even *can* be violated. If the natural order can be violated, then we can't know that it isn't just a fluke that reality happens to appear to follow certain rules right now. Thus this assumption destroys the validity of rational inquiry into the nature of the universe. But if rational understandings of nature are invalid, why do they work so well? Why does it appear, so far, that equations like "F = ma" really do describe nature? Are you really willing to believe in a 300 year long fluke? I find that assuming nature is immutable is much simpler. BTW, if rationality is invalid, what do you propose that we should use instead? > ... > The temptation to >proliferation of hypotheses of new forces should be resisted precisely to >the extent that it would cripple our ability to understand the world. On the other hand, we could choose to cripple ourselves from the very beginning, by making irrational, untestable, a priori assumptions about nature; assumptions which destroy the very basis of knowledge. Anyway, the complaint about "proliferation of hypotheses" is bogus; to propose that the natural order can be violated is to propose a hypothesis. > If >we say "it didn't happen" in the face of a lot of evidence, we may be raising >our standards of evidence too high, which would also cripple our ability to >understand the world. If we set our standards of evidence too low, we may believe anything, thus crippling our ability to understand the world. > --Paul V. Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047 -- "Shredder-of-hapless-smurfs" Ken Montgomery ...!{ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!ut-ngp!kjm [Usenet, when working] kjm@ut-ngp.ARPA [for Arpanauts only]
mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (11/26/84)
In article <499@wucs.UUCP> esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek) writes: >> Well, why not start with the gospel accounts, ... > >I am afraid I understated my own case. I think that as long as the >definitions are specific enough, it will be clear what would count as >evidence for or against! I don't want to stick my neck out too far, so >I won't attempt to evaluate the evidence for or against the resurrection. >As to what evidence would be needed, and some general guidelines I think >should be used in evaluation, see below. > >>Yes, but in this case, there is no experiment in the first place. All we >>have is eyewitness testimony, and we have no real way to evaluate its >>reliability. > >I think it is possible to evaluate its reliability. We need to ask how >truthful were the people of that time, how reliable their conditions of >observation were, how reliable their memories, how reliable the translation >and transcription processes were. These can be estimated by comparing with >situations that we know something about. For example, we know that there >are many conditions of observation which are unreliable (look at some of >the "paranormal" research critiqued in Martin Gardner's book *Science: >Good, Bad and Bogus*; or some of the tests by psychologists of people's >accuracy in witnessing ordinary events -- not very encouraging). I will be the first one to agree that eyewitness testimony is unreliable. The problem I see with trying to extrapolate from current experience is that we have an explanation which says "This event represents interference with natural law, AND all other reports of such events are false", and thus by it we would EXPECT current experience to indicate that such events are not happening now. It is fundamental to the essence of the resurrection that it claims that there was something unique about the situation in which the ressurection took place, and that it is therefore not valid to extrapolate backwards from our present experience. I won't deny that this is a very tough claim to swallow. I will deny that you can decide this claim scientifically; to accept the ability of science to decide this is to claim that we can extrapolate backwards, and therefore the question has already been decided without the use of science. I am unconvinced by the failure of parapsychological research. Parapsychology insists upon the scientific observability the supernatural, and thus claims that the rules for scientific evidence do apply. I am claiming that the supernatural is NOT scientifically observable. >> Unfortunately, this common sense has to dictate that nature is uniform in >> order to be able to allow us to apply our past observations to present and >> future behavior. WIth this assumption, you cannot objectively evaluate >> a claim that the natural order of the universe has been temporarily >> violated. The problem remains the same. > >Now wait a second. What's the difference between saying "the natural order >has been temporarily violated" and ascribing an unusual event to a new >force or particle? Anyway, the latter hypothesis should be tested, if >possible, by checking other implications of the hypothesis (if any). We >must weigh the losses of each alternative explanation. The temptation to >proliferation of hypotheses of new forces should be resisted precisely to >the extent that it would cripple our ability to understand the world. If >we say "it didn't happen" in the face of a lot of evidence, we may be raising >our standards of evidence too high, which would also cripple our ability to >understand the world. I don't agree. What do scientists do now when faced with a datum which cannot be reproduced? They do not bring up a new theory (unless the evidence is really tremendously strong); they throw out the datum as representative of some undetermined experimental error. I think we can all agree that the evidence for the resurrection is less than resounding. The only evidence we have which is available for general examination is somewhat contradictory reports of reports of eyewitness testimony. Obviously one can take the position that they are sufficiently convinced of the uniformity of the behavior of nature and easily poke enough holes in the reports to discount them. There are those of us who feel that there is sufficient reason to suspect that there are interruptions in nature's conformity to some undetermined natural law. How then does one decide between the two? Anyone can see that it is impossible to demonstrate the second point through scientific observation. To do so would require that the interruptions did themselves have a pattern, and thus would evidence not for interrruptions, but for a higher order law of nature. In the same way, it is impossible to prove the first point to be false. To prove the first point to be true through the use of science, we must assume that there are no interruptions-- and thus we assume what we want to show. In the same way, we cannot demonstrate that the second point is false without first assuming that it is false. It is clear (to me at least) that when we decide between these questions, we are using something that is not science. [This by the way is the only point I have been trying to make, and I apologize if I have not clearly stated this.] Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe