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Or he needs to just get ignored (Unless, I suppose, you actually can see the sense enough to counterpoint)
But, I guess it might get a bit boring in here without someone like this coming along
Up until the tie, the scientists were logical in saying that the drawer contains blue socks. They do not know what else is in the drawer because they can't see inside. The contents of the drawer other than blue socks (which they have evidence of) is Unknown and therefore any claims that it contains brown ties, bananas or unicorns is a claim without foundation, but undisproved.
Then the Brown tie comes out. The correct conclusion is that the drawer contains both blue socks and at least one brown tie. All other claims are undisprovable but unsupported hypotheses.
There is no way the third scientist could deny the blue socks unless they had vanished and there was no good evidence. Then (like a lot of claims) it has to be considered unverified (1) until persuasive proof of blue socks is forthcoming.
Assuming that the first two scientists have the socks as evidence there can be no case of the disputation that you argue. I'm not familiar with Hempel's paradox (I'll look it up) but I suspect that you have misused it.
In any case, i fail to see what your mind experiment proves other than you don't seem to understand how science or even inferational evidence works.
On only one thing will I agree with you — you clearly do not understand the point of the illustration.
I assume that you are all familiar with the problem of induction, so I will not belabor the point. I will simply speak again regarding the example. The scientists pull out two pairs of socks from a drawer, and there is one unknown item still remaining inside. What are the chances that the remaining item is also a blue pair of socks?
Conventional explanations go thus: If we assume that the third item is not a blue pair of socks, what are the chances that we would have pulled out two blue pairs of socks? Our chances of pulling the first blue pair of socks would be 2/3 and the chance of pulling out the second pair of blue socks would be 1/2. So, the chances that we would see these things pulled out if the third item were not a pair of blue socks is 1/2 * 2/3 or about 33 percent. So, we can speak with good confidence, that there is a 67 percent chance that the last item is also a pair of blue socks.
Reasoning thus, people will say: Therefore, if there were 100 items in the drawer and the first 99 items pulled were blue socks, there would be overwhelming evidence to believe that the last item would also be a pair of blue socks.
By so doing, the people are committing a logical fallacy known as the base rate fallacy. Bayesian statistics tells us:
P(H|E) = P(E|H) * P(H) / P(E)
Those who adopt the above reasoning are simply saying that P(H|E) = P(E|H), and that is that. This is simply inexcusable. One cannot simply assume that P(H) / P(E) = 1 without some solid reason for doing so.
But, the logic gets worse. Imagine that we are told that there are four items in a drawer. We also have the working hypothesis that all pairs of socks in the drawer are blue. We pull out, as before, two pairs of blue socks and one brown tie. According to the above (faulty) logic, what are the chances that the last item will be a pair of socks that is NOT blue?
Conventional reasoning goes thus: If we assume that the last item is a non-blue pair of socks, what are the chances that we will have pulled out the items that we did? The chances of pulling out those three items (in any order) is 3/4 * 2/3 * 1/2 = 1/4 so we have a 25 percent probability that the last item is a non-blue pair of socks. Accordingly, most people conclude that there is a 75% chance that the last item is something other than a non-blue pair of socks (e.g., another brown tie, a green scarf, a blue pair of socks, etc.).
Ironically, the same conclusion will be drawn if the person pulls out three pairs of blue socks! Conventional wisdom will still claim that there's a 75% chance that the last item is a something other than a non-blue pair of socks. In other words, pulling out a brown tie is considered to be (in conventional wisdom) just as strong a justification for the theory as pulling another pair of blue socks! Yet, if someone is asked whether finding a brown tie tends to show that all socks in a drawer are black, the person will look at you strangely and say that it does not.
All of this comes back to the basic problem of assuming that P(H|E) = P(E|H).
But, I'm not done! What about the competing theory that has yet to be mentioned? Our working theory is that all socks in the drawer are blue, but what about people who are convinced that all blue items in the drawer are socks? Both groups will insist that the evidence at hand supports their theory. How could we possibly know which theory is true? Quite simply, we cannot. Thus, we realize the problem of underdetermination in science. No finite amount of data will ever bring us down to one theory.
In short, there will always be a number of science apologists arguing that science has proved X or science has disproved Y when, in reality, science is simply incapable of doing either. In fact, science cannot readily even give us a good indication for the degree of belief we should hold in any given theory.
Therefore, it is illogical to claim that the evidence is sufficient to justify belief in any given theory. Similarly, it is unreasonable to insist that one must have evidence in order to believe in something.
Oh we all get the 'point' of your argument , be assured that we do. Trying to discredit Science because it will keep undermining religious claims, and thus Looks to the Believers like it is aided, abetted and funded by atheism.
Why don't you stop wasting everyone's time? You said yourself that what you said "Conventional explanations go thus" was a fallacy. So - we don't fall into it. We need a better and more correct way of coming to conclusions about data - so we do. Why are you trying to pretend that this fallacious (as you say yourself) argument is what 'atheist scientists' are doing? Where is this a 'conventional explanation?' You said - twice - that the premises are wrong, and the conclusions were also wrong.
We knew that and i explained what science actually does, instead. Why aren't you listening?
Commenting further, it is common to hear it banded about in forums such as this one that the Biblical story of a flood or the exodus or whatever has been disproved. What the people mean to say is:
1. I start with the assumption that there was no global flood.
2. Everything I observe is consistent with that assumption.
Therefore, the probability that there was a flood in light of the evidence [i.e., P(F|E)] is very low. In reality, however, what they are observing is that P(E|~F) > 0.95 and they are assuming that this number translates directly into P(~F|E) without considering P(F) or P(E). Again, this is simply inexcusable.
Those people who conclude that P(F|E) is low need to specify what numbers they used for P(F) and P(E) and how they arrived at those numbers.
Oh we all get the 'point' of your argument , be assured that we do. Trying to discredit Science because it will keep undermining religious claims, and thus Looks to the Believers like it is aided, abetted and funded by atheism.
Why don't you stop wasting everyone's time? You said yourself it was a fallacy. So - we don't fall into it. We need a better and more correct way of coming to conclusions about data - so we do. Why are you trying to pretend that this fallacious (as you say yourself) argument is what 'atheist scientists' are doing? You said -twice that the premises are wrong, and the conclusion as also wrong.
We knew that and i explained what science actually does, instead. Why aren't you listening?
Well, of course you get the "point" of the argument because you are deeply enmeshed in the false dichotomy that everyone who isn't a scientific realist must be a Bible-thumping inbred redneck born again fundamentalist.
Rationalists? Nihilists? Scientific anti-realists? That's all a bunch of bull, right? It's just a way to hide the fact that they're really not just theists but Christians. Why, we all Christianity is wrong because some priest somewhere molested some little boy. Guilt by association, that's what I say.
Folks.. Do I really need to unpack this slew of well -poisoning, bile stirring strawman arguments from the false dichotomy (anyone who isn't an atheist is a fundy) to the hinted 'vatican pederasts R not us' pretence that this is the only argument against the religious claims? Nope - i'm sure you can all see it for yourselves.
On only one thing will I agree with you — you clearly do not understand the point of the illustration.
I assume that you are all familiar with the problem of induction, so I will not belabor the point. I will simply speak again regarding the example. The scientists pull out two pairs of socks from a drawer, and there is one unknown item still remaining inside. What are the chances that the remaining item is also a blue pair of socks?
Conventional explanations go thus: If we assume that the third item is not a blue pair of socks, what are the chances that we would have pulled out two blue pairs of socks? Our chances of pulling the first blue pair of socks would be 2/3 and the chance of pulling out the second pair of blue socks would be 1/2. So, the chances that we would see these things pulled out if the third item were not a pair of blue socks is 1/2 * 2/3 or about 33 percent. So, we can speak with good confidence, that there is a 67 percent chance that the last item is also a pair of blue socks.
Reasoning thus, people will say: Therefore, if there were 100 items in the drawer and the first 99 items pulled were blue socks, there would be overwhelming evidence to believe that the last item would also be a pair of blue socks.
By so doing, the people are committing a logical fallacy known as the base rate fallacy. Bayesian statistics tells us:
P(H|E) = P(E|H) * P(H) / P(E)
Those who adopt the above reasoning are simply saying that P(H|E) = P(E|H), and that is that. This is simply inexcusable. One cannot simply assume that P(H) / P(E) = 1 without some solid reason for doing so.
But, the logic gets worse. Imagine that we are told that there are four items in a drawer. We also have the working hypothesis that all pairs of socks in the drawer are blue. We pull out, as before, two pairs of blue socks and one brown tie. According to the above (faulty) logic, what are the chances that the last item will be a pair of socks that is NOT blue?
Conventional reasoning goes thus: If we assume that the last item is a non-blue pair of socks, what are the chances that we will have pulled out the items that we did? The chances of pulling out those three items (in any order) is 3/4 * 2/3 * 1/2 = 1/4 so we have a 25 percent probability that the last item is a non-blue pair of socks. Accordingly, most people conclude that there is a 75% chance that the last item is something other than a non-blue pair of socks (e.g., another brown tie, a green scarf, a blue pair of socks, etc.).
Ironically, the same conclusion will be drawn if the person pulls out three pairs of blue socks! Conventional wisdom will still claim that there's a 75% chance that the last item is a something other than a non-blue pair of socks. In other words, pulling out a brown tie is considered to be (in conventional wisdom) just as strong a justification for the theory as pulling another pair of blue socks! Yet, if someone is asked whether finding a brown tie tends to show that all socks in a drawer are black, the person will look at you strangely and say that it does not.
All of this comes back to the basic problem of assuming that P(H|E) = P(E|H).
But, I'm not done! What about the competing theory that has yet to be mentioned? Our working theory is that all socks in the drawer are blue, but what about people who are convinced that all blue items in the drawer are socks? Both groups will insist that the evidence at hand supports their theory. How could we possibly know which theory is true? Quite simply, we cannot. Thus, we realize the problem of underdetermination in science. No finite amount of data will ever bring us down to one theory.
In short, there will always be a number of science apologists arguing that science has proved X or science has disproved Y when, in reality, science is simply incapable of doing either. In fact, science cannot readily even give us a good indication for the degree of belief we should hold in any given theory.
Therefore, it is illogical to claim that the evidence is sufficient to justify belief in any given theory. Similarly, it is unreasonable to insist that one must have evidence in order to believe in something.
Oh jeez. Another what if type rant. That goes pretty much nowhere.
Commenting further, it is common to hear it banded about in forums such as this one that the Biblical story of a flood or the exodus or whatever has been disproved. What the people mean to say is:
1. I start with the assumption that there was no global flood.
2. Everything I observe is consistent with that assumption.
Therefore, the probability that there was a flood in light of the evidence [i.e., P(F|E)] is very low. In reality, however, what they are observing is that P(E|~F) > 0.95 and they are assuming that this number translates directly into P(~F|E) without considering P(F) or P(E). Again, this is simply inexcusable.
Those people who conclude that P(F|E) is low need to specify what numbers they used for P(F) and P(E) and how they arrived at those numbers.
But, as i have said - that is not the way it is done by science - even if atheists might do it, though I doubt it. Your assumption that this false way is the scientific way of assessing evidence is simply wrong.
Even if it were, your criticism would fail because (as I think I said in this thread) the parameters are known. We can look in the drawer, There is no banana. Plenty of socks, but no flood.
You must see that you are saying that looking all over the world and finding no (geological or palaeontological) evidence of a global flood as described in Genesis doesn't mean that it is already a validated assumption that there was no flood, but that eventually the evidence will turn up. This is rubbish. If there had been a Biblical Flood, the evidence would there -globally - already.
You can keep examining socks until Chophra admits that he doesn't understand Quantum mechanics, but you are not going to be able to find a banana in a drawer that (on examination) doesn't have one.
The argument for God is the same. The assumption is not that there is no god, but rather the believers' assumption that there is. The burden of proving that falls on the god -believers. Science will look at the evidence (geological, palaeontological, historical) and say - 'this is what we found' this is how it works, and why. And what we don't know is unknown.
This means that there is no really good evidence for a god - only 'nature' - natural physical processes, and the rest is as yet unknown or unexplained.
That enjoins agnosticism - "On the basis of the evidence, i do not know whether there is a god or not' (caveat - though on the basis of the evidence, that there isn't any evidence of one where one would expect to find it, suggests that any such god is deist - and cannot be the 'hands -on' God of the Bible). And agnosticism logically mandates atheism: 'So I will not believe in a god until there is compelling evidence'.
Belief in a god (Theism), may be through a misunderstanding (or misrepresentation as you are doing here) of the evidence, or the assessment of it, or simply faith -based belief in spite of the evidence. Axiomatically Faith is Not a good reason to believe anything and is Not a virtue.
I can see what you are arguing - that all the evidence so far that is not really evidencing a god (despite the very best efforts of the believers) does not mean that the evidence won't be forthcoming. Though as i say, the banana (hands -on Biblegod) should already have been found in the drawer - if we are to believe the claim
that there is one.
Of course we can't rule out a more deist -type cosmic god. We have to reserve belief because the evidence isn't yet compelling, but we are sure about Biblegod. That one does not exist.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-15-2019 at 03:15 AM..
Oh jeez. Another what if type rant. That goes pretty much nowhere.
Absolutely nowhere. It is predicated on the assumption that science is based on an anti -god bias.
It may be true that tabula rasa atheists already have a belief in disbelief because of a lack of religious upbringing. That doesn't matter. What matters is that, when theism presents its' case, the marked atheist subject should be able to look at fairly assessed evidence and the arguments of both sides (and not just one side, as the evangelists would dearly love to be the case) anc see whether the case for god has been made.
i say that - on all the evidence of the debates here, it hasn't. Thus, on reason and evidence, the atheist should now stay atheist, but now knows the arguments and will not now be persuaded by the arguments of the evangelists. Though I have to say that they can be very clever and persuasive, as in Behe's IC or Lane -Craig's Kalam. I reserve 'cunning' for the more blatantly deceptive arguments like Lee Strobel's 'how an atheist was convinced by evidence' - when the only evidence apparently looked at is the evangelical side and not a single doubt or question is raised, or the various irrelevancies or lies told about fossils. That 'Lucy' would fit in a shoe -box (it's a very small creature) that all the transitional fossils would fit in a car (I doubt they would but even ONE makes the case) and the deliberate lie that Lucy's spine enters (ape -like) from back of the skull when it actually enters (humanlike) from below.
This is why the discussion matters and the various Cunning Plans of of evangelical theism should be countered publicly.
P.s it's rather interesting to note a characteristic of theist apologetics -
(1) get your atheist -stumper.
(2) ignore any refutations, or dismiss them as 'biased' (closed -minded, deluded by the Other Side, some kind of nasty Motivation..).
93) keep repeating 'atheist -stumper' until the opposition gives up.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-15-2019 at 03:44 AM..
Reasoning thus, people will say: Therefore, if there were 100 items in the drawer and the first 99 items pulled were blue socks, there would be overwhelming evidence to believe that the last item would also be a pair of blue socks.
By so doing, the people are committing a logical fallacy known as the base rate fallacy. Bayesian statistics tells us:
P(H|E) = P(E|H) * P(H) / P(E) ...
I will not go through the whole of your post as it is often just a collection of assertions and straw man arguments. I will just use the above to show we have seen this use of jargon by people pretending to know what they are talking about when they do not.
The 99 items are the base rate. The base rate fallacy is where given extra, specific information, the general base rate is ignored.
It is just like your flawed argument where !X = Y, when Y is also true for X. And when your errors are pointed out, you just ignore that with more irrelevant posts.
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, be assured that we do. Trying to discredit Science because it will keep undermining religious claims, and thus Looks to the Believers like it is aided, abetted and funded by atheism.
