What is "anti-science"?

[HMS_Beagle]

No, I'd say that with empirical science, the burden is not on the questioner but on the person making the positive claim.

Science orthodoxy got to be orthodoxy because it already provided sufficient quality and quantity of positive evidence. Do you have any experience or understanding of science at all?

Can you clarify? Dishonest in the sense of telling people something that they themselves believe is false? Or failing to disclose that they aren't publishing in particular journals?

Mostly the first but both to some extent. Professional ID-Creationists are propaganda merchants. They publish blatant lies which they know are blatant lies but they push them for political reasons anyway.

[Joel]

Science orthodoxy got to be orthodoxy because it already provided sufficient quality and quantity of positive evidence.

I didn't say otherwise.

Mostly the first but both to some extent. Professional ID-Creationists are propaganda merchants. They publish blatant lies which they know are blatant lies but they push them for political reasons anyway.

To what end?

[HMS_Beagle]

I didn't say otherwise.

You certainly implied otherwise with your weasel wording. I'm not the only one to notice either.

To what end?

To push Christian literal Biblical beliefs back into public school science classrooms. See the Discovery institute's Wedge Document for their specific plan.

[TheLurch]

No it's the opposite. My concern about false charges of "anti-science" is where I started (in the OP). You have latched onto attacking me on some tangential issues and supporting arguments, and I've indulged you for a while, but I'm trying to get back to the main topic, to argue my main thesis.

You brought up the flat earthers in your opening post, and go on about them again here. You're not indulging me; you're driving this.

Regarding the flat-earthers supporting argument, it's that flat earthers are not necessarily anti-science. Which is not the same as saying "flat earthers are scientific". The question is not whether they are (all? some?) scientific, but whether they are anti-science.

They reject the process of science, and try to substitute a sham version in its place. That, to me, is anti-science.

Which gets us to the larger point. You'd like to define anti-science narrowly, as only applying when someone's fully rejecting the scientific process as a whole. This, to me, is absurd; it allows people to pick the science they like to accept, and reject other areas of science for nothing more than arbitrary reasons, and still present themselves as being pro-science. If you want to be pro-science, you have to accept it when it tells you things you're not comfortable with. In fact, i'd argue that those are the most important things to accept if you want to be pro-science.

[Joel]

You certainly implied otherwise with your weasel wording. I'm not the only one to notice either.

It has nothing to do with whether the questioner has the burden.

To push Christian literal Biblical beliefs back into public school science classrooms. See the Discovery institute's Wedge Document for their specific plan.

I don't think that answers my question. That would be just another way that they might spread the "blatant lies which they know are blatant lies". Why do they want them taught in public school science classrooms?

[HMS_Beagle]

It has nothing to do with whether the questioner has the burden.

Then you agree the one with the new claims challenging the already supported orthodoxy has the burden of proof.

I don't think that answers my question.

It does answer your question, you just don't like the answer.

[Joel]

They reject the process of science, and try to substitute a sham version in its place. That, to me, is anti-science.

They who? Every flat earther? The specific few flat earthers that I've been talking about? Every person who has ever pondered, "How do I really know what the shape of the earth is? Do I think the earth is round only because others have told me so?"?

As for rejecting the process of science, from before I gather that you want to include the acceptance of claims on the testimony of others as part of the scientific method, such that anyone ever skeptical of any such claim therefore rejects the process of science. You seem to be requiring a kind of submission to authority such that questioning any of the authorities claims is to be anti-science.

Or imagine a hypothetical person who has come to accept all the propositions you would like him to accept in the scientific orthodoxy, but he came to accept them through performing experiments and seeing the evidence for himself. Is that person anti-science, because he didn't accept these truths by relying on the testimony of other experimenters/observers, and thus had only a sham version of the process of science? No, of course not. If anything, the person was more (empirically) scientific by doing so. The only reason relying on the testimony of others need arise among empirical science is because of practical limitations of time and material resources. It is more a result of the limitations of empirical science than an inherent/positive part of its process.

Which gets us to the larger point. You'd like to define anti-science narrowly, as only applying when someone's fully rejecting the scientific process as a whole. This, to me, is absurd; it allows people to pick the science they like to accept, and reject other areas of science for nothing more than arbitrary reasons, and still present themselves as being pro-science. If you want to be pro-science, you have to accept it when it tells you things you're not comfortable with. In fact, i'd argue that those are the most important things to accept if you want to be pro-science.

I think perhaps it is more that I am saying that empirical science is a methodology, and not a set of propositions about the world. And you seem to think it is a set of propositions. Thus your talking about "pick the science they like to accept" as if it's about accepting certain truth claims, rather than about a methodology of questioning and testing/observing.

To provide clarity to this discussion, what do you mean when you say "when it tells you things"? Are you talking about your senses as you experiment and observe? I suspect not.

One more thing that might be unimportant, but I'll bring it up just in case it leads to useful discussion: It might be that anti-science and pro-science are not the only possibilities. It may be that someone could be neither particularly pro nor anti. And varying degrees of each. Some people fall into scientism, which can be unscientific yet the person might self-classify as being on the extreme pro-science end of the spectrum. (As sometimes seen in the "I ******* Love Science" internet groups.)

Which raises another potential distinction between unscientific and anti-science. A person may sometimes unintentionally be unscientific in their thinking, without the person being anti-science. Everyone is occasionally illogical, but that doesn't mean they are anti-logic. On the other side, a person who uncritically accepts all science facts they are told in science class out of a simple faith in the authority of the science teacher is also being unscientific, however true the facts are, and however pro-science the person may claim to be.

[TheLurch]

As for rejecting the process of science, from before I gather that you want to include the acceptance of claims on the testimony of others as part of the scientific method, such that anyone ever skeptical of any such claim therefore rejects the process of science. You seem to be requiring a kind of submission to authority such that questioning any of the authorities claims is to be anti-science.

Again, you're putting words in my mouth. It's very dishonest, and i wish you would stop. It's especially offensive in this case, because someone else pointed out (in response to the last time you claimed this) that i specifically mentioned well established and validated evidence.

Now, do you want to have an honest discussion or not?

[Joel]

It has nothing to do with whether the questioner has the burden.

Then you agree the one with the new claims challenging the already supported orthodoxy has the burden of proof.

No, that seems to be the opposite of what I said.
The questioner/challenger doesn't have the burden. The one making the positive (and orthodox) claim has the burden. That's true whether or not the person making the orthodox claim does in fact have the support/evidence to back it up. Possessing that evidence is good. But the questioner is still free to say, "Show me, so I don't have to just take your word for it."

It does answer your question, you just don't like the answer.

You say that they publish "blatant lies which they know are blatant lies" in order to get more people to spread the lies to more people, including to more children (via public schools). But why? I'll guess you are going to say that it's so the next generation grows up believing the lies, so that the lies get propagated further. But none of this explains why these people want the "blatant lies which they know are blatant lies" to be propagated. What's the purpose? Surely they don't think that the propagation of falsehoods is a good in itself. And even that wouldn't explain why they design the propagation of these particular lies rather than others.

[Joel]

Again, you're putting words in my mouth. It's very dishonest, and i wish you would stop. It's especially offensive in this case, because someone else pointed out (in response to the last time you claimed this) that i specifically mentioned well established and validated evidence.

Now, do you want to have an honest discussion or not?

Okay, what form does this "well established and validated evidence" take, if we are not talking about being able to see the experiment/observation for one's self, and yet it is also not the testimony of others regarding their performance of the experiment/observation?

I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth. As I recall, we were talking about someone who insisted on being able to see the evidence for themself. And you objected that that was anti-science. It seems that the only alternative to seeing for yourself is for someone(s) else to tell you, and you trust them (which is what testimony is). That testimony may be be in the form of published journal articles or textbooks. Is there a third case I'm forgetting?

[Tassman]

You just keep on shoving that foot in your mouth doncha?

Thanks for admitting I was correct, that you have faith in science.

You just keep on misrepresenting the point being made and think you're being cute, doncha?

What I have "faith in" is scientific methodology, not science per se. We know that established scientific knowledge is verified and potentially verifiable by me should I gain the necessary expertise. The same can't be said for religious beliefs.

[Tassman]

It seems that the only alternative to seeing for yourself is for someone(s) else to tell you, and you trust them (which is what testimony is). That testimony may be be in the form of published journal articles or textbooks. Is there a third case I'm forgetting?

Yes the pulpit or the street corner waving a bible around while testifying about how Jesus came into your life as personal friend and saviour. This is testimony. But unlike scientific "testimony" there is no body of tested experiments available for anyone to replicate, it is merely subjective (some would say delusional) persobal experience.

[HMS_Beagle]

No, that seems to be the opposite of what I said.
The questioner/challenger doesn't have the burden. The one making the positive (and orthodox) claim has the burden.

With all established sciences including evolutionary theory that burden has already been met many times over. If you're only interested in dishonest word twisting the door's over there.

You say that they publish "blatant lies which they know are blatant lies" in order to get more people to spread the lies to more people, including to more children (via public schools). But why?

I answered that already too. You seem to be dead set on nothing but dishonest trolling. Why is that?

[Joel]

No, that seems to be the opposite of what I said.
The questioner/challenger doesn't have the burden. The one making the positive (and orthodox) claim has the burden. That's true whether or not the person making the orthodox claim does in fact have the support/evidence to back it up. Possessing that evidence is good. But the questioner is still free to say, "Show me, so I don't have to just take your word for it."

With all established sciences including evolutionary theory that burden has already been met many times over.

Meeting the burden has two parts. The first is collecting the evidence/arguments. I assume that's what you are referring to when you say the burden has been met many times over. The second is presenting it to the questioner. Which is, by necessity, a new burden for every new questioner (potentially ever new human that's born). Alternatively it could die with one generation and not be passed on to the next. It's not a matter of it being presented once or even many times over, and then the job being done for all time. And the new questioner that comes along doesn't have the burden.

You say that they publish "blatant lies which they know are blatant lies" in order to get more people to spread the lies to more people, including to more children (via public schools). But why? I'll guess you are going to say that it's so the next generation grows up believing the lies, so that the lies get propagated further. But none of this explains why these people want the "blatant lies which they know are blatant lies" to be propagated. What's the purpose? Surely they don't think that the propagation of falsehoods is a good in itself. And even that wouldn't explain why they design the propagation of these particular lies rather than others.

I answered that already too. You seem to be dead set on nothing but dishonest trolling. Why is that?

[HMS_Beagle]

Meeting the burden has two parts. The first is collecting the evidence/arguments. I assume that's what you are referring to when you say the burden has been met many times over. The second is presenting it to the questioner. Which is, by necessity, a new burden for every new questioner

It's up to the new questioner to learn about the evidence that already exists. That's what colleges and universities, and the primary scientific literature is for. It's not science's job to spoon feed every newbie who comes down the pike, especially not Creationist ignoramuses who have no interest in learning.

Why have you twisted the words and deliberately misrepresented the points of so many responders here?