What is "anti-science"?

[Sparko]

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.

You have faith in both science methodology and in science knowledge. You trust that the methodology works and you trust in the published results. You have never verified anything. It is the exact definition of "faith" in the biblical sense: TRUST.

I trust the documentation for Christianity and the evidence that shows it to be reliable. You do the same with science. You also do it with history in general. You know you cannot "test" history, yet you believe the historical "facts" that you have been told, based solely on reading textbooks and the internet.

[Sparko]

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.

Show us the scientific tests that prove that Julius Caesar was murdered. And please replicate them and let us know the results. M'kay? Thanks.

[Roy]

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?

That this question was answered days ago, and that answer* has been ignored, is just one of several indications that Joel does not want an honest discussion.

*"The descriptions of techniques, methods and results found in scientific writing is not mere testimony. It usually includes sufficient information to allow the reader to reproduce the results if they desire"

[Roy]

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."

And the one making the positive claim is free to say "I've told you how to find out for yourself. If you can't be bothered to do the work, that's your problem."

[Roy]

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.

Why don't you ask the people who propagate the lies?

[TheLurch]

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.

You recall incorrectly; given your behavior, i can't tell whether it's tactical or inadvertent. We were talking about people refusing to accept results unless they did the experiments themselves. Which is anti-science, since it implies that we can't be confident in any scientific results except the most trivial.

What should people accept? Multiple independent validations of a result, performed using distinct methods, and experimental testing of the consequences of the result, and subjected to peer review. And, this being science, there's different degrees of tentative acceptance of results that fall short of that.

[shunyadragon]

Show us the scientific tests that prove that Julius Caesar was murdered. And please replicate them and let us know the results. M'kay? Thanks.

Historical events are not subject to scientific tests nor falsification by scientific methods. Though scientific methods may be used in archaeology to confirm data collected such as radiometric dating, but not confirm the historical accuracy of historical events.

[rogue06]

Historical events are not subject to scientific tests nor falsification by scientific methods. Though scientific methods may be used in archaeology to confirm data collected such as radiometric dating, but not confirm the historical accuracy of historical events.

Several years back on a show on PBS^[1] some scientists demonstrated that the path that historians all said part of an army (IIRC, during the Civil War) made a charge by was incorrect and it was a nearby one instead. They found a lot of items typically found after a battle during the 19th cent (bullets, buttons and the like) on the other path but very little on the traditional one.

















1. Something like History Detectives or Secrets of the Dead

[Joel]

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.

Okay, and the questioning can come first and lead to the learning. So even that is not a prerequisite to questioning. And what you say here is different from the claim of yours that we are discussing: that if the questioner does not provide evidence to support his skepticism, then that makes him anti-science. Unless I'm misunderstanding your claim.

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

If I have done so it is certainly not intentional. Perhaps it is that we haven't defined terms well enough and we are using different definitions for certain terms, and thus miscommunicating. Like, when I say "questioning" or "questioner" I am using it broadly to include people who are skeptical about a claim, or agnostic or otherwise have suspended judgement, or those who think it is an extraordinary claim and ought to be disbelieved without seeing the evidence for himself, or those for whom the claim contradicts things they already believed and thus believe the claim to be false, etc. Now if you had in your mind a much narrower definition of "questioning", then I could see how we would have been miscommunicating.

[Joel]

That this question was answered days ago, and that answer* has been ignored, is just one of several indications that Joel does not want an honest discussion.

*"The descriptions of techniques, methods and results found in scientific writing is not mere testimony. It usually includes sufficient information to allow the reader to reproduce the results if they desire"

A person's descriptions of what they did and what they observed is exactly what testimony is. It may be very detailed and accurate testimony of exactly what they did and how they did it and precisely what they observed. It may very well be detailed enough that readers could repeat the same steps. (However note that the context of this discussion was a reader who is not going to reproduce the results, and is only going to rely on what they've read.)

Testimony "happens whenever one person tells something to someone else."
--Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://www.iep.utm.edu/ep-testi/
cf also the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/testimony-episprob/

Either you are an eyewitness to something (say an experiment) or someone else (hopefully an eyewitness to it) tells you about it. The latter is testimony.


Obviously you and perhaps others are using a different definition of "testimony". If so, please make it clear what definition you are using.

[Joel]

Why don't you ask the people who propagate the lies?

The reason I'm asking is that it seems much more plausible that they think it's true. (And I bet if I ask them they'll say they think it is true.) I'd like the one(s) alleging that these people are knowingly lying to at least provide a plausible motive to help support the allegation.

And the one making the positive claim is free to say "I've told you how to find out for yourself. If you can't be bothered to do the work, that's your problem."

Sure, and that doesn't contradict what I've said. My point was that the questioning comes first. The skeptic does not first need to have his own supporting evidence prior to skepticism (in order to avoid being anti-science). Suspending belief prior to having evidence is not anti-science.

[Joel]

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.

You recall incorrectly;...We were talking about people refusing to accept results unless they did the experiments themselves. Which is anti-science

That seems like the same thing to me. Can you explain the distinction you are making?

[Sparko]

Historical events are not subject to scientific tests nor falsification by scientific methods. Though scientific methods may be used in archaeology to confirm data collected such as radiometric dating, but not confirm the historical accuracy of historical events.

no duh. tell that to Tassman.

[TheLurch]

That seems like the same thing to me. Can you explain the distinction you are making?

I'm looking right now at the traces from the LIGO detector, made during the detection of a black hole merger. The LIGO trigger systems are all automated - it was all recorded, processed, and analyzed by computer, so i'm not even relying on someone else to tell me about it. That's seeing the data.

Refusing to accept that the data was valid without building another two LIGO detectors and waiting for another merger would be what you were advocating.

[shunyadragon]

Several years back on a show on PBS^[1] some scientists demonstrated that the path that historians all said part of an army (IIRC, during the Civil War) made a charge by was incorrect and it was a nearby one instead. They found a lot of items typically found after a battle during the 19th cent (bullets, buttons and the like) on the other path but very little on the traditional one.

1. Something like History Detectives or Secrets of the Dead

Please note: I said scientific methods can help confirming and, of course, correcting historical records of events through archaeology, as in the above correcting the location of correct path, but science reaches some limits verifying the events themselves.

There are very important uses of science in support of archaeology for example; dating the pyramids, how they were built, and when.