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Atheist Elite College.
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Your posts are becoming more and more fractured. And you are omitting key segments of my post that illustrate just how untenable your position is.
I left out the parts where I felt I would repeat myself. If I missed anything important, then point it out and I respond to it.Again, you are being far too vague, even for an internet discussion. Scientists and peer-review bodies reject evidence-less conclusions. Funding bodies reject untestable, supernatural proposals. But "Science" says absolutely nothing about personal beliefs you may hold about the ultimate metaphysical nature of existence.
Science, as a method, rejects evidence-less conclusions, clear enough for you?What scientific examination? We have already established that it cannot be examined. Your "examination" amounted to nothing other than interviewing the witness and deciding whether or not you believe him based on his mental health. We are not talking about some gap in scientific knowledge.
Because there isn't a gap in the scientific knowledge. everything about the claim can be explained by natural means and the only issue is if you start with the assumption that something supernatural did happen and therefore science would be of no use to investigate. Like I said, if what you claimed was accurate, then we would have to cease any current scientific testing (or disregard any already determined scientific results) if someone put the claim in such a way that it involves a supernatural entity.And as I've said, they are not indistinguishable. I had a magic kit when I was 10. I did not have a divine kit when I was 10. Similarly, Harry Potter is not divine.
From the point of view of the scientific method, they are.They are accepting the finding that everything we associate with consciousness is controlled and defined by the brain. They reject that everything we associate with the spirit is defined by the brain. But no science paper or research has concluded that, because spirit is not defined in any testable way.
And something that is not defined in any testable way is, scientifically, indistinguishable from not existing. If you cant even define what you are believing in, then how can you say you even believe in it?Exactly. You are presenting the science, without any philosophical overtones about what they should ultimately believe. I don't care if someone wants to believe an expanding earth hypothesis. What I do care about is if a) They try to present the expanding earth hypothesis as scientifically established, or b) try to present science as some philosophical set of rules about the metaphysical universe. A perfectly reasonable theist would reject the expanding earth hypothesis. You could argue that they are not being reasonable by rejecting ineffable claims, but you couldn't argue that they are hypocrites or that the must accept scientism if they accept science due to them being "the same".
If you teach someone plate tectonics, tell them how it accounts for the movements of the continents, the rise of mountains and earthquakes, then you are (implicitly, at least) teaching them to reject counter arguments (on the basis that plate tectonic theory has the most evidence). I dont understand how someone could present some aspect of science to group and not accept them to accept it and reject other counter arguments (or at least reject it scientifically).
So?
So then we would know what physical evidence there is for their claims. If there is none, then their claims is pretty unlikely to have happened.For the purposes of this thread, science has incorporated both the method and the results, in a similar manner to the use of the word in the phrase "science book" or "science museum". Do you actually have a point, or are you just being pedantic?
I have always been presenting science as the method, as that is what I understand science to be, a method.It doesn't require that we assume the universe is entirely measurable and consistent. To use your counting analogy: I don't have to assume the real numbers are countable if I am counting the elements of some subset, like the natural numbers.
But if we cant measure, we cant test or model and if the universe isn't consistent, then results have no reliable reproducibility and are therefore useless for prediction. What do you think science requires of us?This is a non-sequitur. How are they rejecting "any theory or set of data that has been established by the scientific method" if they don't believe all of the universe is entirely consistent.
Thats not what I said. I said that if they accept the theories or data sets (ie the results), then all you can say is that they accept the results. if they believe that the universe is not entirely consistent and measurable, then they are rejecting science (or at least my understanding of science, as you seem to differ on this)I don't believe the universe is necessarily entirely consistent.
In what way?Really? You cannot recognise the difference between the two pages? How they are describing two different things? That is unreal.
I can see that the two pages are physically different, but I dont see a difference between the two terms, when you take them at their definition.Do you also feel the same about the "Military" and "Militarism" wikipedia pages?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militarism
Seeing as science is a method and military is an organisation, I wouldn't see it as the same situation.0 -
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Mark Hamill wrote: »Science, as a method, rejects evidence-less conclusions, clear enough for you?
No. Science, as a method, is a system of investigation. All it can do is establish or falsify hypotheses. If my hypothesis predicts evidence that is not found, then my hypothesis is falsified. If my hypotheses cannot be established or falsified, then it will be rejected by scientific journals as "not even wrong". It says nothing about personal beliefs I might hold.Because there isn't a gap in the scientific knowledge. everything about the claim can be explained by natural means and the only issue is if you start with the assumption that something supernatural did happen and therefore science would be of no use to investigate. Like I said, if what you claimed was accurate, then we would have to cease any current scientific testing (or disregard any already determined scientific results) if someone put the claim in such a way that it involves a supernatural entity.
Again, you are arguing for scientism/naturalism, as opposed to arguing that scientism and science are identical things, even though you yourself have accepted that science is a method. Do you believe scientism is a method?From the point of view of the scientific method, they are.
Methods do not have points of view.And something that is not defined in any testable way is, scientifically, indistinguishable from not existing. If you cant even define what you are believing in, then how can you say you even believe in it?
It is empiricism which says this. Science is an empirical means of investigation, but science is not empiricism. If you teach someone plate tectonics, tell them how it accounts for the movements of the continents, the rise of mountains and earthquakes, then you are (implicitly, at least) teaching them to reject counter arguments (on the basis that plate tectonic theory has the most evidence). I dont understand how someone could present some aspect of science to group and not accept them to accept it and reject other counter arguments (or at least reject it scientifically).
I would expect them to, insofar as I would wager that most people would accept it, even if I don't particularly care either way. Equally, I find it unreasonable to believe in the supernatural. But this debate is not about how reasonable it is to believe in things without evidence. It is about whether or not science and scientism are the same thing.So then we would know what physical evidence there is for their claims. If there is none, then their claims is pretty unlikely to have happened.
*shrug* if you say so. What does this have to do with science being the same as scientism?I have always been presenting science as the method, as that is what I understand science to be, a method.
You have been presenting science as not only a method, but a philosophical position which says the method is the best, most authoritative method we have. Whether or not you believe this is the case, science is not such a philosophical position.But if we cant measure, we cant test or model and if the universe isn't consistent, then results have no reliable reproducibility and are therefore useless for prediction. What do you think science requires of us?
Methodological naturalism. Just because someone believes it is possible that God might tamper with experiments does not mean they can't apply a system of investigation under the assumption that God won't.Thats not what I said. I said that if they accept the theories or data sets (ie the results), then all you can say is that they accept the results. if they believe that the universe is not entirely consistent and measurable, then they are rejecting science (or at least my understanding of science, as you seem to differ on this)
Then I am rejecting science?In what way?
The universe is not obliged to appear consistent or understandable to our primate minds, or any mind of arbitrary intelligence. The universe may be queerer than any being can suppose.I can see that the two pages are physically different, but I dont see a difference between the two terms, when you take them at their definition.
So you believe the pages are wrong because they are defining them differently?Seeing as science is a method and military is an organisation, I wouldn't see it as the same situation.
That is not an important distinction, but for the sake of argument, consider Military tactics and Militarism then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_tactics
The difference is one is a method, and the other is an opinion about the scope of the method. It really is a simple matter.0 -
Beaten by 30 seconds!!!
Mark Hamill wrote: »
Yes but the claim being investigated is that a witness heard a voice while in the presence of a burning bush (you ignore the speculative bias added by the witness and just look at the bare bones claim). At this stage, it would be premature to declare that it was supernatural.
Honestly, I have to wonder... You claimed that horticulture would
offer us some inkling of evidence as to whether a burning bush spoke
or not. Now, remember, this was your evidence. Quite frankly it is
more ludicrous to assume that a burning bush spoke naturally than
the claim that a burning bush spoke through the supreme magician.
For a bush to magically start speaking it would violate our current
knowledge of biology so radically that we'd claim it was supernatural.
It is literally, literally, impossible for a bush to start speaking of it's own
accord or even by any possible genetic mutation, there is absolutely
no way that the exact sequence of mutations would take place in one
sole piece of shrubbery to allow it to begin speaking, let alone only to one
person for one moment or, at least, only allowing it to speak when doused
in flames. So again, this piece of 'evidence' you offered up to us was
completely meaningless. Under what scenario horticulture could offer us
up some piece of evidence - let alone the overwhelming evidence you
would love to lead us to believe - is simply beyond me. Furthermore,
I am quite certain it's totally beyond you too because you've had plenty
of time to clarify to us what you meant & have, again, given us vague
nods to the authority of this 'evidence'.
If it's not clear - I just analyzed the only possible use which your evidence
could have in an argument like this because the way in which you used
this as evidence just has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation.
Nobody has claimed a bush spoke naturally, horticulture has nothing to
say about a bush that speaks non-naturally. Your evidence applied to the
case of a bush speaking naturally. Honestly I just don't know how to say
this in another way, it's just so obvious, so elementary, so black & white.
Either the bush spoke through god or it didn't speak, I don't see any other
possibilities. The key fact here is that horticulture has absolutely nothing
to do with either scenario so whatever the case may be your horticultural
evidence is totally irrelevant.
Now, I have not prematurely decided anything, you have just totally
ignored the point I was making & responded by accusing me of assuming
X. I'll repeat what I said, I said that the claim being put forth is that a
supernatural entity, in the form of a bush, spoke to humanity. Your
evidence, as I already said, is only evidence against the claim that a
bush started speaking naturally - a claim so ludicrously tautologically
false that we don't even need to bring in horticulture to say this is
ridiculous. If we assume that the bush spoke naturally, which I think is
going to be your fallback position here, I think this conversation is over,
you are trolling if you are going to take seriously the possibility that the
bush spoke naturally & even bother to investigate such nonsense. I see
absolutely no other reason why horticulture has anything to do with
this claim & am still waiting for you to make up an excuse because the
initial way you used your evidence is completely meaningless, applies to a
totally different argument...Mark Hamill wrote: »Of course it has use. We can deduce that the bush itself didn't speak. We dont just stop there however. We can compare the event to people hallucinated voices and see if its possible if the witness, in this case, was hallucinating.
You forget the key word here, We can deduce that the bush itself didn't
speak naturally. That is the extent to which your evidence reaches. I'm
not even considering whether a person was hallucinating or not, that
thought hasn't occurred to me yet, I'm just focusing on your evidence
of horticulture & how it applies. Not only have you not made a serious
case for evidence via horticulture in any way but you don't even know
the limitations evidence such as this would have. Horticulture has nothing
to say about supernatural entities forcing a bush to speak. Unless the
study has been conducted in Scientistic American I must have missed it.
Just to repeat my propaganda, you claimed that horticulture would be
evidence, I've told you that your evidence is evidence for a different
argument, nobody is arguing whether a bush spoke naturally, nobody
is entertaining such nonsense (let alone using it to infer things about a persons psychology).Mark Hamill wrote: » With my evidence we can conclude that the bush didn't speak by itself,
Nobody claimed it did...Mark Hamill wrote: »that it wasn't on fire (assuming the claim is that the bush was on fire but not being burnt) and that the witness was fully capable of hallucinating the entire experience. A simple scientific explanation is given for all parts of the claim, its up to the claimant to now show why they aren't apt.
You may very well be right about the witness hallucinating. However
horticulture isn't going to let us know the answer to this question one
way or the other :pac:Mark Hamill wrote: »We need only test a representative sample of a population in order to make inferences about the whole population. Statistics would be pretty useless if we had to test each and every single unit of a population to describe how any unit of a population will react in a specific environment.
Oh no... Honestly not going to get into this one, just shocking that you'd
make an argument like this here though...Mark Hamill wrote: »It takes nativity to assume that just because something is claimed to be supernatural that it is, even if its 2000 years ago. We dont know something is supernatural is not until we test it, do we? So how can approach any situation, before even testing it, and assume its untestable?
You're right, it does take nativity to assume that just because something
is claimed to be supernatural that it is, even if its 2000 years ago. I would
go ahead & say it takes ideology as well. I agree, we don't know if
something is supernatural unless we test it. We're still waiting for even
a tap, an inkling, a hint, a morsel of a method of scientifically studying
this claim from you, despite your confident claims that you've already
given us this evidence in the form of horticulture & the psychology of an
individual you have learned from an understanding of large sample-space
statistics. When you have something better than these horrendously
flawed pieces of 'evidence', let us know, until then this is just scientistic
armchair science.Mark Hamill wrote: »Yes, because it suited it them (ie didn't conflict with their ego), or because they had no other choice (the science was too useful).
I suppose this is also a scientific claim you're making :pac: I'm sure you
know all about the psychology of all these people via your psychological
sample space statistics in order to make broad generalizations such as
the one you've just made. With vague references to horticulture &
statistics being taken seriously it's no wonder a person would think that
they have found the ultimate mode of reality - just point the magic
wand of scientism at something & scream COGITO!, we now understand
it & all we must do is hint to some, preferably relevant, study in order to
justify ourselves :cool: Quite a seductive way of living I'll admit.Mark Hamill wrote: »You have made a logical error. You have assumed that because the event is claimed to have been supernatural, and because we are unable to examine it directly, that we must assume it was supernatural and therefore science would have been useless to examine it.
I beg you, please go back to the part of my post that you responded to
& make it explicitly clear how I have forced us to assume this is
supernatural just because we can't test it. You are going to have to
be more explicit than handwavey references to my last post to argue
your case here because, unlike the burning bush, we actually have
evidence to test the claim. So please make it explicit how I have
forced us to assume this was supernatural.
If you actually read what I posted you'll see I said that "The claim that a
burning bush was speaking over 2000 years ago due to be a supernatural
agent is one that we'll never be able to test". I made a typo & left out
an "&", but my typo does not obscure what I meant. If you include it
you'll see I then said that this "is not something that we can say
anything scientific about", the point being that because we don't have
any evidence we can't say anything scientific about it. In no way, no
shape or form have I forced us to assume a supernatural quality to this
situation, even without the "&". Everything we can say is guesswork &
a product of our biases, something you've amply demonstrated thus far.0 -
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sponsoredwalk wrote: »You claimed that horticulture would offer us some inkling of evidence as to whether a burning bush spoke or not.
....
I am quite certain it's totally beyond you too because you've had plenty of time to clarify to us what you meant & have, again, given us vague nods to the authority of this 'evidence'.
I dont understand your issue here? Horticulture is only piece of evidence (I've mentioned others), and in this case we use it to eliminate a possibility (something which you yourself did, when you declare a naturally talking bush to contradict our understanding of biology). I never said using these pieces of evidence would take very long, or that they wouldn't be used to eliminate possibilities.sponsoredwalk wrote: »The key fact here is that horticulture has absolutely nothing to do with either scenario so whatever the case may be your horticultural evidence is totally irrelevant.
I mentioned other pieces of evidence, above horticulture (which at least eliminated a possibility). Read my posts fully.sponsoredwalk wrote: »Now, I have not prematurely decided anything,
Actually, yes you have. You have ignored where I already said "Of course it [horticulture] has use. We can deduce that the bush itself didn't speak. We dont just stop there however." and, ignored the other evidence I gave (the possibility of the voice coming from another source, the possibility the witness was a liar or insane) and for some reason latched onto horticulture with some elongated rant that was actually using horticulture in order to declare the use of horticulture as evidence as ludicrous ("For a bush to magically start speaking it would violate our current knowledge of biology so radically that we'd claim it was supernatural.").sponsoredwalk wrote: »You may very well be right about the witness hallucinating. However horticulture isn't going to let us know the answer to this question one way or the other :pac:
sponsoredwalk wrote: »I suppose this is also a scientific claim you're making :pac:
Its an observation (and a generalisation, admittedly), but I would have thought that it was obvious. When unencumbered by requirements of evidence and reproducibility, people rarely believe in things that dont ultimately suit their world view.sponsoredwalk wrote: »I beg you, please go back to the part of my post that you responded to & make it explicitly clear how I have forced us to assume this is
supernatural just because we can't test it. You are going to have to be more explicit than handwavey references to my last post to argue
your case here because, unlike the burning bush, we actually have evidence to test the claim. So please make it explicit how I have forced us to assume this was supernatural.
I said "Do you think each and every single phenomena, from a burning bush to how I managed to stub my toe on my bed this morning, needs to be investigated and published in a journal or book? We would never get anywhere if we couldn't take what we have obtained from investigations in the past and apply them to claimed events." , you responded with "These are all natural events, we know how to deal with natural events. The claim that a burning bush was speaking over 2000 years ago due to be a supernatural agent is one that we'll never be able to test is not something that we can say anything scientific about".
You countered my point that we can use previous studies and apply them to newly claimed events, by saying that these events (each and every phenomena) are natural, implying that the 2000 year old claim was of a non-natural event. You may not have meant that, but you wrote it.
sponsoredwalk wrote: »Everything we can say is guesswork & a product of our biases, something you've amply demonstrated thus far.
Its not guesswork. Everything about the claim can be accounted for naturally. Someone tricked the witness somehow, he was lying or insane. Unless someone brings in more evidence, any of these three possibilities are strong contenders. And thats how all scientific examinations go. We accumulate and examine evidence, make predictions and determine which of our hypotheses best satisfy the evidence. If new evidence comes along, we make new models and examinations. I'm waiting for new evidence.0 -
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Mark Hamill wrote: »I dont understand your issue here? Horticulture is only piece of evidence (I've mentioned others), and in this case we use it to eliminate a possibility (something which you yourself did, when you declare a naturally talking bush to contradict our understanding of biology). I never said using these pieces of evidence would take very long, or that they wouldn't be used to eliminate possibilities.
Excuse me, you used this 'evidence' of horticulture to pass off a guess
about the fire never having taken place & also making a big guess about
the psychology of the claimant.Mark Hamill wrote: »Actually, yes you have. You have ignored where I already said...
You responded with this when I said I hadn't prematurely decided
anything, your response in no way shows me how I, in fact, did
prematurely decide upon whatever conclusion, instead you respond as
if I'd ignored something - but that kind of a response doesn't mean I've
prematurely decided anything
As for what I ignored:Mark Hamill wrote: »"Of course it [horticulture] has use. We can deduce that the bush itself didn't speak. We dont just stop there however." and, ignored the other evidence I gave (the possibility of the voice coming from another source, the possibility the witness was a liar or insane) and for some reason latched onto horticulture with some elongated rant that was actually using horticulture in order to declare the use of horticulture as evidence as ludicrous ("For a bush to magically start speaking it would violate our current knowledge of biology so radically that we'd claim it was supernatural.").
I ignored that claim for very good reason, supressing the chance of a
very smart-alec comment too I'll have you know
Basically I wasn't
going to bother indulging the fantasy conclusions you'd reached based
on this 'evidence' - what I ignored is just guesswork built upon
guesswork.
Horticulture is relevant for the claim about a bush burning naturally,
it is not relevant to the question about a supernatural entity in any way,
shape or form & you have obviously conceded this since you offer up
absolutely no counter argument & instead refer to this other evidence
that I'm apparently missing because I'm misreading your posts:Mark Hamill wrote: »I mentioned other pieces of evidence, above horticulture (which at least eliminated a possibility). Read my posts fully.
It's quite clear at this stage you're strengths lie in the vagueness of your
arguments, referring to the phantom evidence in your previous posts
is convenient but please, go back & quote your strongest piece of
evidence & I'll tell you why I haven't wasted my time on it. Just in
particular, the possibility of a voice coming from another source is
not going to be aided in any way, shape or form by horticulture at all
so again I just don't know why you'd be able to conclude, on the basis
of horticulture, that a voice came from another source - there's just
no way horticulture will help you decide that (unless we were entertaining
the possibility that the bush spoke naturally, but, again: totally different
argument...).
So to be crystal clear, my big elongated rant was a way of showing how
ludicrous your evidence actually is when we apply it in this conversation,
that's why I latched onto it, because it's the only relevance it has here.
It's pretty ironic that the very person arguing horticulture is relevant
to this question doesn't even understand one paragraph when we actually
attempt to apply horticulture :pac:Mark Hamill wrote: »
Of course I'm serious, you not only tried to used your 'evidence' of
horticulture to make "scientific claims" [read: guesses] about the psychology
of the bush person but whats far worse is that you tried to argue that
horticulture would in any way, shape or form tell us anything about
this situation at all!Mark Hamill wrote: »Its not guesswork. Everything about the claim can be accounted for naturally. Someone tricked the witness somehow, he was lying or insane.
Oh man, this is hilarious... You say this isn't guesswork,
then go right ahead & offer us three guesses :pac:
I never said this situation could or couldn't be accounted for naturally, it
might be - however it might not be (as is possible due to the claim that
is being put forth). I don't actually know & I don't think we have any
way of actually finding out. You have claimed that we can find out but
offered us nothing but handwavey argument from the authority of
irrelevant evidence (at best). There are words to describe that type of
argument...Mark Hamill wrote: »Unless someone brings in more evidence, any of these three possibilities are strong contenders. And thats how all scientific examinations go.
No, unless someone brings us any evidence it's just not a scientific
examination. You arbitrarily guessing amongst a load of maybe-possible
scenarios is not science. Every scenario is equally likely due to the
nullity of evidence, as are a few other scenarios we could just invent.
Without evidence we can't tell until you give us something of substance,
i.e. more than guessing. But again, & I have to stress this, because it's why
I'm bothering to post, horticulture is no scientific tool in this 'scientific inquiry.Mark Hamill wrote: »We accumulate and examine evidence, make predictions and determine which of our hypotheses best satisfy the evidence. If new evidence comes along, we make new models and examinations. I'm waiting for new evidence.
We're waiting for a tap, an inkling, a morsel of a hint of scientific evidence
from you still, let alone new evidence (wow...). You vaguely referring to
your earlier posts which I have apparently misread, according to you, is
not evidence. The evidence thus far has been abysmal, the reason I even
posted in this thread is because your vague argument from the authority
of horticulture was something I thought you'd get away with as serious if
you weren't called on it, the rest is completely void & not worth even
mentioning unless as a joke or to point out the systematic flaws.
I wanted to put this one at the end because this is the second time you've
done something like this in an argument with me, to read something
completely out of context & opposite to what I'm saying on boards &
I'm not sure whether it's deliberate or not:Mark Hamill wrote: »I said "Do you think each and every single phenomena, from a burning bush to how I managed to stub my toe on my bed this morning, needs to be investigated and published in a journal or book? We would never get anywhere if we couldn't take what we have obtained from investigations in the past and apply them to claimed events." , you responded with "These are all natural events, we know how to deal with natural events. The claim that a burning bush was speaking over 2000 years ago due to be a supernatural agent is one that we'll never be able to test is not something that we can say anything scientific about".
You countered my point that we can use previous studies and apply them to newly claimed events, by saying that these events (each and every phenomena) are natural, implying that the 2000 year old claim was of a non-natural event. You may not have meant that, but you wrote it.
That would be a very clever misrepresentation of my words but honestly
I'm not sure, it would take some genius to find a loophole like that. You
mentioned a plurality of events: ""Do you think each and every single
phenomena, from a burning bush to how I managed to stub my toe on
my bed this morning" implying that they are all natural & that's what I
said, they are natural events. I agreed with you.
However in no way was I implying that we must assume this is
non-natural, it just makes no sense at all for me to argue that,
especially when my entire argument is that we have no possible
way of attaining evidence to decide pro or con.
That's what's simply astonishing about you attributing this argument to
me, my entire posts have been criticizing your attempt to claim that we
can find evidence about this because, as I've already said: it's "one that
we'll never be able to test & is not something that we can say anything
scientific about".
This just has to be a rhetorical trick, how could a person who argues there
is no possible way for their to be evidence for the situation that we're in
to go off & that claim that we can not only make an affirmative decision
but actually argue it must have been supernatural? Mind-boggling...
The equivalent of this situation would be for a person at the speech of
some racist orator coming out of the speech thinking the orator is a big
hippie because they misheard the beginning of a sentence & then
heard the orator say something non-racist. You can turn that around &
start with an anti-racist orator (as is the way I originally wrote it
)
The point is that everything I have said has been the total opposite of
being able to make a definite claim about this situation so to try to
attribute this to me based on one sentence is really something else,
elementary reason would stop someone from saying such a thing...
I mean surely you can at least see how strange this appears, it's not
that big a deal but I mean it's the complete opposite of my argument
& not the first time this has happened[edit]- It seems you have left out a key paragraph in your response to sponsoredwalk. Even the first sentence warrants a response:
"You forget the key word here, We can deduce that the bush itself didn't speak naturally. That is the extent to which your evidence reaches."
I think this was assumed as conceded due to the fact that he's dropped
the horticulture business & instead chosen to hint at the mountain of
evidence I've misread rather than defend the indefensible. I'd love to
have a serious argument about how horrendous this argument is -
scientifically studying whether god spoke through the bush, but if we cant
get past the most simple & obvious it's just not going to happen, but it's
an interesting question nonetheless.0 -
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sponsoredwalk wrote: »Excuse me, you used this 'evidence' of horticulture to pass off a guess about the fire never having taken place & also making a big guess about the psychology of the claimant.
In your effort to get off cheap jibes you aren't reading my posts properly. Here is what I said:
"With my evidence we can conclude that the bush didn't speak by itself , that it wasn't on fire (assuming the claim is that the bush was on fire but not being burnt) and that the witness was fully capable of hallucinating the entire experience. A simple scientific explanation is given for all parts of the claim, its up to the claimant to now show why they aren't apt."
Horticulture tells us that the bush didn't speak itself (yes its obvious, but, strictly speaking, you still need evidence to dismiss what is obvious). The issue of whether it was on fire was in reference to the biblical story claiming the bush was on fire, but not being burnt (NO-one had really made an issue of this, as we are discussing a general claim, but I accounted for it anyway). The possibility of the witness hallucinating (or just lying) is perfectly acceptable, so as I said, its up to the claimant to produce more evidence or else the claim, with all of its parts given a rational explanation, can be dismissed. Do read the posts more clearly, I wont go through this again.sponsoredwalk wrote: »You responded with this when I said I hadn't prematurely decided anything, your response in no way shows me how I, in fact, did prematurely decide upon whatever conclusion, instead you respond as if I'd ignored something - but that kind of a response doesn't mean I've prematurely decided anything
Your bizarre infatuation with horticulture in your last post showed that you had prematurely decided that I had based my entire argument on horticulture, which was spectacularly wrong.sponsoredwalk wrote: »As for what I ignored:
I ignored that claim for very good reason, supressing the chance of a very smart-alec comment too I'll have you know Basically I wasn't going to bother indulging the fantasy conclusions you'd reached based on this 'evidence' - what I ignored is just guesswork built upon guesswork.
So you admit that you did prematurely decide I had nothing else to say, by labeling as guesswork what was actually implication by observation. we know that people can lie about events like this, we know that people can hallucinate events like this. Both these possibilities fit the evidence, so without further evidence to contradict, they are both acceptable conclusions.sponsoredwalk wrote: »I just don't know why you'd be able to conclude, on the basis of horticulture, that a voice came from another source.
You yourself said that a bush naturally talking would violate everything we know about biology, therefore we know that voice had to come from somewhere else. Yes its really obvious, buts in only really obvious because of horticultural science. I thought it was obvious that I was being really strict in my assessment of the evidence (overly strict) but honestly, what the hell is your problem here?sponsoredwalk wrote: »Oh man, this is hilarious... You say this isn't guesswork, then go right ahead & offer us three guesses :pac:
I never said this situation could or couldn't be accounted for naturally, it might be - however it might not be (as is possible due to the claim that is being put forth). I don't actually know & I don't think we have any way of actually finding out. You have claimed that we can find out but offered us nothing but handwavey argument from the authority of irrelevant evidence (at best). There are words to describe that type of argument...
Its ironic how dismissive you are of me, and yet its you who fail to understand how the scientific method is working here. We get a claim, we examine the evidence and make hypotheses. So far, three hypotheses all fit the evidence given (the witness was tricked, lying or insane). Without any more evidence offered, all of these three hypotheses are acceptable. they account for everything in the claim and previous cases show they are very possible. There is nothing inconsistent with what I've said, I have offered no "guesses" without reason to support them. Your dismissal is full of crap.sponsoredwalk wrote: »No, unless someone brings us any evidence it's just not a scientific examination. You arbitrarily guessing amongst a load of maybe-possible scenarios is not science. Every scenario is equally likely due to the nullity of evidence, as are a few other scenarios we could just invent. Without evidence we can't tell until you give us something of substance, i.e. more than guessing. But again, & I have to stress this, because it's why I'm bothering to post, horticulture is no scientific tool in this 'scientific inquiry.
Your giving out to me and you come out with this nonsense? Even in an almost total lack of evidence (there is never a total lack of evidence), all possible scenarios are not equally likely, dont be ridiculous.sponsoredwalk wrote: »That's what's simply astonishing about you attributing this argument to me, my entire posts have been criticizing your attempt to claim that we can find evidence about this because, as I've already said: it's "one that we'll never be able to test & is not something that we can say anything scientific about".
Its make no sense to say we have no evidence to say anything about the claim. We have evidence about whats plants can do under normal circumstances. We have evidence about how people can be tricked, how they can lie and how they can hallucinate. We even have claims from others claiming that they heard a different voice in a way which contradicts the burning bush claim. There is always evidence.sponsoredwalk wrote: »I mean surely you can at least see how strange this appears, it's not that big a deal but I mean it's the complete opposite of my argument & not the first time this has happened
And I suppose its impossible for you to be wrong twice:rolleyes:?sponsoredwalk wrote: »I think this was assumed as conceded due to the fact that he's dropped the horticulture business & instead chosen to hint at the mountain of evidence I've misread rather than defend the indefensible. I'd love to have a serious argument about how horrendous this argument is - scientifically studying whether god spoke through the bush, but if we cant get past the most simple & obvious it's just not going to happen, but it's an interesting question nonetheless.
As I said to Morbert, and had already said to you, the horticultural evidence tells us it didn't naturally happen, which is an obvious but necessary conclusion you need to make. But there is much more evidence, which I have described at least twice now.
NB: Just like the last time we debated, your posts are overly long, repetitive rants, with a penchant for belaboring points that I didn't make in an effort to make cheap dismissive jibes (basing psychology on horticulture, wher do you come up with this bs :rolleyes:). Do everyone a favour and read my post entirely before responding to it, that way I wont get the same nonsense thrown at me more than once.0 -
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Mark Hamill wrote: »In your effort to get off cheap jibes you aren't reading my posts properly. Here is what I said:
"With my evidence we can conclude that the bush didn't speak by itself , that it wasn't on fire (assuming the claim is that the bush was on fire but not being burnt) and that the witness was fully capable of hallucinating the entire experience. A simple scientific explanation is given for all parts of the claim, its up to the claimant to now show why they aren't apt."
What have I misread in this? What point did I miss exactly? I thought
I'd pointed out your evidence was so flawed to begin with that we
don't even need to indulge your guesses about the psychology (hallucinating)
of the person.
It's not scientific evidence to say that a person was hallucinating just
because some people hallucinate. I dare you to make that argument
with a straight face to a psychologist
Furthermore, this idea that just because we found something that fits
it doesn't mean that this was the case. I go into this in considerable
detail below.Mark Hamill wrote: »Your bizarre infatuation with horticulture in your last post showed that you had prematurely decided that I had based my entire argument on horticulture, which was spectacularly wrong.
Wow, I have explicitly said that horticulture is the only bit of substance
in your arguments. I said it at the start of my very first post. I made it
explicitly clear that I was examing what you were presenting as evidence.
If you call examining your evidence a bizzare infatuation then that is
really something else.
As for me being spectacularly wrong about you basing your entire
argument on horticulture, I explicitly said that this is the only piece
of evidence you've presented that I thought was worth the time to
criticize. What's more, & this is the real killer, I asked you to quote,
to quote, your other evidence that I had ignored. You have not done
this. So if you can't even do this then I am not spectacularly wrong
am I? But we'll just be extra careful, at the start of this post you
quoted an earlier comment of yours. If you are going to argue that
this was what I ignored you're not only wrong but the comment is
dealing specifically with horticulture (which is what I've been responding
to) so it's just false.
As to the specific word prematurely decided, you are just playing word
games at this stage, it's extremely clear now, I explicitly pointed out
how you responded accusing me of ignoring things, that in no way means
I prematurely decided anything. I'll be crystal clear about this prematurity
issue here:Mark Hamill wrote: »So you admit that you did prematurely decide I had nothing else to say, by labeling as guesswork what was actually implication by observation.
I've explained in detail why this is just guesswork already but took the
time to point out in this post even moreso why this is all guesswork.
See below in the part where I quoted Dawkins book.
But I did not prematurely decide you had nothing else to say, I said
I was ignoring what you said because it's useless, horticulture is the
only leg you have to stand on & this is only because it appears as if
it carries some authority in this question. You have in no way whatsoever
defended the claim that horticulture is relevant & I've given even more
reasons below (the shamrock area) why this is such horrendous evidence.
So again, please quote an earlier passage of yours that doesn't rely on
horticulture in some way that you think is evidence & I'll explain to you
why it's so horrendously misleading to label it as science.Mark Hamill wrote: »we know that people can lie about events like this, we know that people can hallucinate events like this. Both these possibilities fit the evidence, so without further evidence to contradict, they are both acceptable conclusions.
See below.Mark Hamill wrote: »You yourself said that a bush naturally talking would violate everything we know about biology, therefore we know that voice had to come from somewhere else. Yes its really obvious, buts in only really obvious because of horticultural science. I thought it was obvious that I was being really strict in my assessment of the evidence (overly strict) but honestly, what the hell is your problem here?
It's not because of horticultural science, do you know what horticulture
is? To say a horticulturalist would be responsible for determining this
question would be like saying chemists work on elementary particle
physics because chemists deal with quantum mechanics. The vagueness
underlying all of these arguments is astonishing...Mark Hamill wrote: »Its ironic how dismissive you are of me, and yet its you who fail to understand how the scientific method is working here. We get a claim, we examine the evidence and make hypotheses. So far, three hypotheses all fit the evidence given (the witness was tricked, lying or insane). Without any more evidence offered, all of these three hypotheses are acceptable. they account for everything in the claim and previous cases show they are very possible. There is nothing inconsistent with what I've said, I have offered no "guesses" without reason to support them. Your dismissal is full of crap.
Your giving out to me and you come out with this nonsense? Even in an almost total lack of evidence (there is never a total lack of evidence), all possible scenarios are not equally likely, dont be ridiculous.
More vagueness, explain to us why it's less likely that the person was
hallucinating as opposed to the claim that the person was actually insane,
or maybe the person was lying? Perhaps this never occurred & someone
made this whole story up? Perhaps this story comes from a previous
religious myth whose evidence was destroyed by the early catholics?
Which one do we pick? In fact how do we find out which one is better
than the other in any way, shape or form? This is what I'm calling pure
guessing, we just don't know which scenario is possible so it's pure
guessing. Science isn't having 6 equally likely possibilities - each of which
we have no evidence whatsoever about & none of which we'll ever be able
to say happened with any certainty.
For all we know it was really a talking tree & the story shifted through
the ages. Using your level of scientific operation I can say that this is
more likely because we have evidence that poems such as the Song of
Solomon are usually pieced together from other sources:
See, evidence :rolleyes:Admittedly, a scholar seeking to trace the origins of, say, the Song of
Solomon is aware that it is not quite what it seems. The Song has oddly
disjointed passages, suggesting that it is really fragments of several
different poems, only some of them erotic, stitched together. It
contains errors — mutations — especially in translation. “Take us the
foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines” is a mistranslation, even
though a lifetime's repetition has given it a haunting appeal of its own,
which is unlikely to be matched by the more correct “Catch for us the
fruit bats, the little fruit bats ...”
Dawkins - "River Out of Eden"
Pure guesswork, you seem to think guesswork is saying elephant when
a teach asks students to guess the answer to 3 + 2 = _. Guesses are
not just ridiculous uninformed answers, they have relevance to the
question at hand - but this is not scientific evidence & never will be until
you get serious. So until you can explain to me why not only allowing for
6 possible scenarios but also being able to just invent other possible
scenarios with a bit of creative thought is science I don't think I'm full
of crap.
The very fact that we have 6 equally likely scenarios is not science, you
said above that because we've found a simple scientific scenario that
it's up to the claimant to argue why it isn't apt, well if you can't even
distinguish between 6 scenarios, or even more we can just invent, then
this is not science, it's - to repeat the phrase - guesswork.Mark Hamill wrote: »Its make no sense to say we have no evidence to say anything about the claim. We have evidence about whats plants can do under normal circumstances.
Again, if we were having a different conversation - the conversation
about the plant speaking naturally - this would be relevant but, again,
you are arguing from the authority of irrelevant evidence. The nature
of plants will tell us nothing about this question, nothing. The whole
point of this conversation is that we're dealing with the exact opposite,
the plant was not acting under normal circumstances so normal
circumstances have absolutely no relevance.Mark Hamill wrote: »We have evidence about how people can be tricked, how they can lie and how they can hallucinate. We even have claims from others claiming that they heard a different voice in a way which contradicts the burning bush claim. There is always evidence.
These are all guesses - as I explained above. The whole question here is
that you have claimed that we can scientifically determine what happened
here yet offered us absolutely no way to distinguish between at least 6
possibilities. The fact that you think this constitutes science is just a
complete misunderstanding of science.Mark Hamill wrote: »And I suppose its impossible for you to be wrong twice:rolleyes:?
This is a very convenient response, brings with it a lot of possible
insinuations about me, but the substance is non-existent with a response
like this. I went into considerable detail to show how you are acting in
this argument - picking a sentence out of context & then arguing that
I'm making the exact opposite point that the rest of my elongated rants
argue for. What's more is that I have old evidence of you doing this
exact same thing to me - so that's two pieces of evidence to show that
you were, in fact, making a ridiculous argument & misrepresenting my
words. I think you're going to need a hell of a lot more than a :rolleyes: to
argue I'm not right about this. I said I don't really care, fine you took
a sentence of mine out of context. It's just the fact that it's entirely
opposite of the rest of my arguments, says to me you're not really
reading me but instead just quoting sentences just to respond.
Nobody claimed it did...Mark Hamill wrote: »As I said to Morbert, and had already said to you, the horticultural evidence tells us it didn't naturally happen,Mark Hamill wrote: »which is an obvious but necessary conclusion you need to make.
You see we haven't even begun to delve into the lunacy of using the
authority of horticulture yet. I made the first attempt in examing what
implications horticulture would have here in that "elongated rant" you
referred to & it went over your head but I'll try again with a different
approach. I'll shamrock-point it for clarity:
♣ In my elongated rant we disposed of the idea that horticulture
will tell us whether the bush spoke by itself. The reason I questioned
this was because you claimed:Mark Hamill wrote: »
With my evidence we can conclude that the bush didn't speak by itself,
If we need to conclude that the bush didn't speak by itself it immediately
implies that we were entertaining the possibility that the bush spoke
itself. That's very simple logic. If we are entertaining the possibility that
the bush spoke by itself then we are examining a totally different
argument. So are giving evidence to a claim nobody made, the only
reason a person would do this is to make their case appear that little
bit stronger by making it appear that it answers some side question
as well. This is pure fraud as I've shown in my elongated rant because
if we even attempt to question the question you are trying to give
answers to we make total fools of out of ourselves... You simply will
not understand what I've said unless you bother to read my elongated
rant properly.
♣ Furthermore, the reason the reference to horticulture is particularly
irrelevant is because there is no way it can help us whether the bush
was burning via real flames (i.e. affecting the bush) or religious flames
(not impacting the bush). We need to entertain both possibilities - as I'll
do via sub-shamrock-points (represented by♥'s to distinguish them) :
♥ Assuming The bush burned using real flames 2000 years ago I just
beg you to tell us why we need horticultural procedures to confirm that
the bush actually burned when we can see it in plain front of us?
The logic here is like saying we need a doctor to confirm a person is
bleeding before we can decide - even though we can see the person
bleeding right in front of us :pac:
(This assumes the bush burned & absolutely nothing grew in that place, the debris miraculously
remained intact for over 2000 years etc... etc... ).
♥ Assuming the bush didn't burn by itself can you please tell us why we
need horticulture to tell us that the bush didn't burn when we can clearly
see the bush in front of us?
Again, this is exactly like needing a doctor to tell you you're not bleeding
when, shock, you're not bleeding.
So honestly, no matter what way we try to include horticulture into this
conversation we can't, it's so unbelievably ridiculous. Clearly you haven't
thought about it at all & are arguing from the authority of scientific
evidence, whatever that evidence is. This is a common mode of rhetoric,
inserting a big technical word accompanied by a vague nod. It was just
obvious there was no substance to this from the beginning, furthermore
you've offered absolutely no defense for it &, to finish, if we try to
apply your 'evidence' we not only find out it's completely irrelevant but
even entertaining the idea that it's relevant is to admit ridiculous
possibilities. There's no clearer way to say that this isn't scientific
evidence in any way, shape or form.Mark Hamill wrote: »which is an obvious but necessary conclusion you need to make. But there is much more evidence, which I have described at least twice now.
I've already asked you to present the best of it, if you're going to respond
to this with your interpretation of the possible psychology of the individual
that isn't evidence as it ignores so much, which I've gone over in
this post. I seen nothing else in your latest post other than horticulture
& guesses about the psychology (much motivated by the horticulture).
I'll give you another shot, get your best evidence & explain why it's
science, especially in light of the fact that we have at least 6 mentioned
thus far & that we can just invent other equally likely possibilities.Mark Hamill wrote: »NB: Just like the last time we debated, your posts are overly long, repetitive rants, with a penchant for belaboring points that I didn't make
Could you please point out one place where I have belabored a point you
didn't make & actually explain how I bang on about a point you didn't
make, if this is a comment about me trying to apply your horticulture to
this discussion - you can't blame me since you've offered absolutely
nothing specific & relied on vague references to horticultural authority.Mark Hamill wrote: »in an effort to make cheap dismissive jibes (basing psychology on horticulture, wher do you come up with this bs :rolleyes:).
I get this bs from your posts:Mark Hamill wrote: »With my evidence we can conclude that the bush didn't speak by itself, that it wasn't on fire (assuming the claim is that the bush was on fire but not being burnt) and that the witness was fully capable of hallucinating the entire experience.
Notice the chain of logic in your own post: Based on the horticultural
evidence you just used to discount the bush wasn't on fire & didn't speak
by itself you then explain to us, on the basis of this, that the witness
was fully capable of hallucinating. Now not only were your assumptions
extremely, extremely, flawed (as I've explained from several different viewpoints in
order to highlight how flawed they are) you just have no business in telling us that
your guess about the mental faculties of the apparent witness is science.
Basing conclusions on faulty evidence is the very definition of bad
science. What's worse is claiming that it's science when you don't have
one, but at least 6 different scenarios that could maybe, possibly,
might-be what happened (maybe).Mark Hamill wrote: »Do everyone a favour and read my post entirely before responding to it, that way I wont get the same nonsense thrown at me more than once.
Not only did I read all of your posts but I asked you to present some of
the evidence I apparently misread & you've failed to do that (because
there isn't any). I haven't said anything that's nonsense yet & simply
beg you to actually explain, in detail, what is nonsense about what I've
said. I've actually thought through your arguments & what you've been
saying, even before I started posting in this thread & as you can clearly
see I've gone through your arguments in different ways & even still I
asked you to go back & quote the best argument you have so that I can
explain, in detail, why I've ignored it. The last thing I would say is that
I'm misreading you, if anything I'm wasting my time thinking about
your arguments too much
I just want to make a side point, I'm really not trying to get at you
here, I'm just trying to get at your arguments. I think you're making
an awful argument that was doomed to begin with because it's just the
inherent nature of the question. This is why science stays away from
religious claims unless you can actually pit them against evidence (such
as the beginning of the bible, a point that most definitely upsets the ego's
of the people involved despite you thinking otherwise). There is a far
deeper question about biases, choices & beliefs involved here that are
just inescapable, I don't think the cult of scientism has ever made an
argument to invalidate these elementary truths. I'm gonna quote M.
Shermer's essay from the Ayn Rand thread:What separates science from all other human activities (and morality has
never been successfully placed on a scientific basis), is its belief in the
tentative nature of all conclusions. There are no final absolutes in science,
only varying degrees of probability. Even scientific "facts" are just
conclusions confirmed to such an extent it would be reasonable to offer
temporary agreement, but never final assent. Science is not the
affirmation of a set of beliefs but a process of inquiry aimed at building
a testable body of knowledge constantly open to rejection or confirmation.
In science, knowledge is fluid and certainty fleeting. That is the heart of its
limitation. It is also its greatest strength.
http://www.2think.org/02_2_she.shtml
Nothing you've offered has been confirmed in any way, is testable or
even examinable & most certainly none of the most likely possibilities
are distinguishable & you've offered no way to test any of these claims
except perhaps in principle if we were there 2000 years ago.0 -
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sponsoredwalk wrote: »It's not scientific evidence to say that a person was hallucinating just because some people hallucinate. I dare you to make that argument with a straight face to a psychologist [IMG]http://b-static.net/vbulletin/images /smilies/pacman.gif[/IMG]
Strawman. I didn't make that argument to you. I merely said it was possible and that it was up to the claimant to produce more evidence to eliminate this possibility.sponsoredwalk wrote: »Wow, I have explicitly said that horticulture is the only bit of substance
in your arguments. I said it at the start of my very first post. I made it
explicitly clear that I was examing what you were presenting as evidence.
If you call examining your evidence a bizzare infatuation then that is
really something else.
Accurate or not, you have attempted to portray my entire argument as being purely in terms of the horticultural evidence, multiple times. Its not just a case that you think this is only bit of substance, you have continuously tried to portray everything else I said in terms of horticulture, despite how crazy it was.sponsoredwalk wrote: »What's more, & this is the real killer, I asked you to quote, to quote, your other evidence that I had ignored. You have not done this.
Go back to the top of this post that I am quoting, and read the first of my posts you quoted (which itself quoted an early of my posts). Keep playing this childish game and on ignore you will go.sponsoredwalk wrote: »It's not because of horticultural science, do you know what horticulture is? To say a horticulturalist would be responsible for determining this question would be like saying chemists work on elementary particle physics because chemists deal with quantum mechanics. The vagueness underlying all of these arguments is astonishing...
So now you are saying that a horticulturist wouldn't be able to tell you if a plant could talk, that the people who grow and cultivate plants wouldn't know if they had the ability to make conversation? Are you f*cking kidding me?
sponsoredwalk wrote: »More vagueness, explain to us why it's less likely that the person was hallucinating as opposed to the claim that the person was actually insane, or maybe the person was lying?
And where the hell did I say that?sponsoredwalk wrote: »Science isn't having 6 equally likely possibilities - each of which we have no evidence whatsoever about & none of which we'll ever be able to say happened with any certainty.
In this case, those possibilities are all we have, without more evidence. We dont say we know what happened for sure with the claim, but each possibility is more likely than the claim itself.sponsoredwalk wrote: »So until you can explain to me why not only allowing for 6 possible scenarios but also being able to just invent other possible scenarios with a bit of creative thought is science I don't think I'm full of crap.
The very fact that we have 6 equally likely scenarios is not science, you said above that because we've found a simple scientific scenario that it's up to the claimant to argue why it isn't apt, well if you can't even distinguish between 6 scenarios, or even more we can just invent, then this is not science, it's - to repeat the phrase - guesswork.
Do you understand how science works? Because you really aren't showing it at all. These guesses? They're called hypothesis and what we do is see if these hypotheses are supported by any evidence. If we get an hypothesis supported by all the evidence (and assuming there is plenty of evidence) we can accept this hypothesis as being reasonably likely to be true. In our case we have multiple hypotheses, which all support the evidence, which all dont require us to throw out everything we know about plant biology, so scientifically, all we do is offer them as possibilities and request more evidence so that we can eliminate them. I would have thought only the likes of JC and Dead One would get science as wrong as you are.sponsoredwalk wrote: »The whole point of this conversation is that we're dealing with the exact opposite, the plant was not acting under normal circumstances so normal circumstances have absolutely no relevance.
You dont know that the plant was acting under abnormal circumstances, all you have is a claim, so you cant assume that it was abnormal circumstances. We can assume it was normal circumstances, and examine other possibilities for what happened, possibilities that dont require talking plants.sponsoredwalk wrote: »If we need to conclude that the bush didn't speak by itself it immediately implies that we were entertaining the possibility that the bush spoke itself. That's very simple logic. If we are entertaining the possibility that the bush spoke by itself then we are examining a totally different argument. So are giving evidence to a claim nobody made, the only reason a person would do this is to make their case appear that little bit stronger by making it appear that it answers some side question as well.
I said a dozen posts ago that when examining a supernatural claim, you must alter it to make it falsifiable, so that you can eliminate possibilities. If you claim that you cant do this, then you are saying that any claim worded to include the supernatural cannot be tested, which causes some pretty damn obvious problems for anything we have, do or will test, as you can word any claim to involve the supernatural, if you like. You inability to see that I was just being pedantic by invoking horticulture just makes you look the fool, not me.sponsoredwalk wrote: »♥ Assuming The bush burned using real flames 2000 years ago I just beg you to tell us why we need horticultural procedures to confirm that the bush actually burned when we can see it in plain front of us? The logic here is like saying we need a doctor to confirm a person is bleeding before we can decide - even though we can see the person bleeding right in front of us (This assumes the bush burned & absolutely nothing grew in that place, the debris miraculously remained intact for over 2000 years etc... etc... ).
♥ Assuming the bush didn't burn by itself can you please tell us why we need horticulture to tell us that the bush didn't burn when we can clearly
see the bush in front of us? Again, this is exactly like needing a doctor to tell you you're not bleeding when, shock, you're not bleeding.
Strawman. I never claimed that horticulture told us anything about the fire.sponsoredwalk wrote: »I've already asked you to present the best of it, if you're going to respond
to this with your interpretation of the possible psychology of the individual
that isn't evidence as it ignores so much, which I've gone over in
this post. I seen nothing else in your latest post other than horticulture
& guesses about the psychology (much motivated by the horticulture).
I'll give you another shot, get your best evidence & explain why it's
science, especially in light of the fact that we have at least 6 mentioned
thus far & that we can just invent other equally likely possibilities.
Explain to me what is different between saying "we know from biology that plants dont talk, therefore we can say the plant didn't talk" and "we know from psychology that people can hallucinate, therefore its possible the witness hallucinated"?sponsoredwalk wrote: »Could you please point out one place where I have belabored a point you didn't make & actually explain how I bang on about a point you didn't make, if this is a comment about me trying to apply your horticulture to this discussion - you can't blame me since you've offered absolutely nothing specific & relied on vague references to horticultural authority.
You've strawmaned me twice in this very post that I'm responding to.sponsoredwalk wrote: »Notice the chain of logic in your own post: Based on the horticultural
evidence
Ah. now I see why you keep getting it wrong. You know how you only recognise the horticultural evidence and dont recognise any other evidence I have brought up? Well, you see I do recognise that other evidence, and all that evidence together allows me to make those individual conclusions. But I have no more based my conclusion that the witness could have hallucinated on horticulture than I based the conclusion that the bush didn't speak on psychology Such an empty headed leap of logic would require a run and jump for most people to reach :rolleyes:.sponsoredwalk wrote: »I just want to make a side point, I'm really not trying to get at you here, I'm just trying to get at your arguments. I think you're making an awful argument that was doomed to begin with because it's just the inherent nature of the question. This is why science stays away from religious claims unless you can actually pit them against evidence (such as the beginning of the bible, a point that most definitely upsets the ego's of the people involved despite you thinking otherwise).
I dont see it like that. Science doesn't stay away from religious claims unless they can be pitted against actual evidence, its simply that without evidence, religious claims have no scientific value. Its assumed that the situation should be: science uses evidence to shoot down religious claims, but in reality, when in reality it should be: religious claims come with supporting evidence to be scientifically tested. That religious claims cant/dont, means that they stay away from science not other way around.sponsoredwalk wrote: »There is a far deeper question about biases, choices & beliefs involved here that are just inescapable, I don't think the cult of scientism has ever made an argument to invalidate these elementary truths.
(I may not be reading thsi point right, but assuming I am:) People will always have biases and beliefs, should we shy away from examining anything because our biases might get in the way? Or should we attempt to overcome them or make checks against them to weaken their hold?sponsoredwalk wrote: »Nothing you've offered has been confirmed in any way, is testable or even examinable & most certainly none of the most likely possibilities are distinguishable & you've offered no way to test any of these claims except perhaps in principle if we were there 2000 years ago.
It is confirmed that plants dont talk, that people can be fooled, can lie, exaggerate and hallucinate. Nothing offered by the claimant can be used to discount any of these possibilities and so its up to the claimant to offer more evidence. Its always up to the claimant to offer more evidence, science is a tool for testing for modelling, but you need to tell it what to test and model. Scientifically we have done what we can with what little evidence we were supplied and we have numerous reasonable possibilities that dont involve supernatural entities. This is only bad for the claimant, not science or the scientist.0 -
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I just thought I'd sum up at the start what this behemoth of a post is
trying to express:
1: The fact that a potentially infinite amount of evidence makes not a scientific claim,
2: Shifting responsibility to a dead man is not relevant at all to our
discussion, in fact it makes no sense considering the conversation
we're having,
3: Irrelevant "evidence" is not evidence of anything scientific
4: Two, or a potential infinite number of, simultaneous conclusions
are not science, they may be scientism, as shown below, but not
science.
5: Attributing the exact opposite argument to someone is not helpful.
I think these are the jist of what I've backed up below, if this summary
is in any way dishonest call me on it & I'll quote the place(s) where I'm
making the relevant claim:
Mark it's far too clear you're not reading me. This quote is evidence of this:Mark Hamill wrote: »
Go back to the top of this post that I am quoting, and read the first of my posts you quoted (which itself quoted an early of my posts). Keep playing this childish game and on ignore you will go.sponsoredwalk wrote:What's more, & this is the real killer, I asked you to quote, to quote, your other evidence that I had ignored. You have not done this.
If you weren't too busy quoting the odd sentence of mine you felt you
could capitalize upon you'd have had the time to read the next three
sentences I wrote. I've colour-coded our posts to highlight the hilarity
of it all:Mark Hamill wrote: »Go back to the top of this post that I am quoting, and read the first of my posts you quoted (which itself quoted an early of my posts). Keep playing this childish game and on ignore you will go.sponsoredwalk wrote: »I explicitly said that this is the only piece of evidence you've presented
that I thought was worth the time to criticize. What's more, & this is the
real killer, I asked you to quote, to quote, your other evidence that I had
ignored. You have not done this. So if you can't even do this then I am
not spectacularly wrong am I? But we'll just be extra careful, at
the start of this post you quoted an earlier comment of yours.
If you are going to argue that this was what I ignored you're not only
wrong but the comment is dealing specifically with horticulture (which is
what I've been responding to) so it's just false.
Notice how the purple, me being careful, was predicting your "childish"
comment. Notice how the red not only predicted you referring to the
very start of your post but also explaining to you why you'd be false to
pull this deceitful argument. Notice how the blue analytically refers to
you referring to your own earlier comment, I mean quantum mechanics
doesn't even get so precise in it's predictions :pac: Not only did I call you
wrong for referring, in general, to me ignoring your quote (of yourself)
but I also had to make a distinction, i.e. to mention horticulture, just to
make even clearer the fact that I hadn't ignored what you quoted.
But what is the comment I've already responded to, just to be crystal
clear:
I've analyzed every sentence of this already."With my evidence we can conclude that the bush didn't speak by itself ,
that it wasn't on fire (assuming the claim is that the bush was on fire but
not being burnt) and that the witness was fully capable of hallucinating
the entire experience. A simple scientific explanation is given for all parts
of the claim, its up to the claimant to now show why they aren't apt."
Again, nobody claimed it did. I've already mentioned this, & what's more"With my evidence we can conclude that the bush didn't speak by itself ,
I've explained how ludicrous, how utterly ridiculous, it is to even need to
discount something so trivial - let alone with horticulture :pac: To even
assume this question is relevant is to create a logical nightmare. I've
already explained, in detail, what this logical nightmare is but you chose
to ignore the substance of what I said & refer to it as an 'elongated rant'.
It's really no wonder you think I haven't responded to you when you are
not bothering to read me & think of what I'm saying as rants.
But there's even more that you still haven't gauged about thisMark Hamill wrote: »obvious but necessary conclusion you need to make.
You may as well have also invoked sociology as scientific evidence that
the supposed witness was, in fact, breathing air that day as well. Why?
Because sociologists deal with people. People are studied in the related
science of psychology. Some areas of psychology deal with brain
psychology. We know from brain psychology that the brain needs a
supply of oxygen in order to function. Hey, this is alsoMark Hamill wrote: »an obvious but necessary conclusion you need to make.
so therefore the authority of sociology is 'scientific evidence', one of the
many phantom strands of supporting evidence of our hypothesis. The
idea that we need evidence to discount something so obvious is to,
if we're being at all consistent, logical, careful, etc... etc..., also make
clear that we must also account for the other "obvious but necessary"
things involved in this scenario. You just discredit yourself by focusing on
this one, out of the many, many, "obvious but necessary" things we need
to account for, all equally irrelevant - for to question the veracity of any
of them is to assume such falsities we make it crystal clear we're not
serious. In fact there is so much wrong with this idea of yours that
even Feynman is able to tell you why it's wrong:
When he talks about the context involved when the person slipped on
ice in his example, Feynman's making a point about the level of necessary
detail involved in explaining a particular event. Your horticulture is the
kind of "obvious but necessary" information only a martian would require,
because the martian isn't aware of the logical nightmare that would
spring forth by needing to confirm that
So your argument from scientific authority is wholly inconsistent, as isthe bush didn't speak by itself
clear by the exclusion of the other "obvious but necessary" things you
excluded in your response to morbert's request for a way to scientifically
determine an answer to this question. Entertaining such nonsense isn't
worth anyone's time. I mean honestly, the need to discount whether or
not the bush spoke by itself is to also say that we also need scientific
evidence to determine whether or not they were breathing air that day
too, along with a host of other things, but - in beautifully circular fashion -
we quickly remember that for us we know we create instant logical
nightmares assuming that these issues are in any way questionable.
Doesn't get any simpler in it's ridiculousness, I can't repeat the same
thing over again with more detail & more justification I'm sorry, I have
a limit.
Double points if you figure out why I picked sociology[hint: You used a in your last post to me when
we were discussing what became my motivation]
What about the rest of the comment I've already responded to, despite
you not recognizing it:
I fail to see how we can "conclude" that this is the case based off yourthat it wasn't on fire (assuming the claim is that the bush was on fire but
not being burnt)
"evidence" of psychology until we have a definite, a definite, answer to
the psychology of the person. What is the point of me entertaining your
guesses, let alone your conclusions based off your guesses? If we're
being serious I'm going to apply the "evidence" you mentioned here to
see how we can even say anything about the bush being on fire. I've
made it explicitly clear I'm not interested in your guesses about the
psychology due to the obvious flaws with it so I'm going to try to apply
what could potentially, that is until we pierce the veil of vague authority,
help us to conclude anything about the fire. Remember, you said that
we could conclude X based off your evidence, I give you the benefit
of the doubt in thinking you're not basing your conclusions based on the
evidence of guesses, obviously I was wrong to give you the benefit of the
doubt :pac:
Furthermore, the idea that we can conclude anything based on your
evidence is so ridiculous I really don't believe you said it. I mean can
we conclude that there are parallel universes now because we have
evidence in the form of mathematics that says it's possible? Obviously
not, in both cases - your guesses about psychology & guesses based off
of a lot of mathematical consistency in string theory - there are
indications that both conclusions are possible, obviously a lot less of a
possibility in one case but I'll give you a good argument at least.
So in giving you the benefit of the doubt & thinking you were not making
ridiculous affirmative claims based off of highly speculative "evidence" I
did not ignore the paragraph you referred to, but in your line of thought
I obviously did because I didn't refute what I consider self-refuted by
it's very nature, more of this "obvious but necessary" line of thought.Mark Hamill wrote: »Strawman. I never claimed that horticulture told us anything about the fire.
I'm aware of that now, again I gave you the benefit of the doubt, I
apologize. Telling us that your speculation on the psychology of the
supposed individual can help us conclude anything about the fire,
(remember, you did say we could conclude:
)"With my evidence we can conclude that the bush didn't speak by itself ,
that it wasn't on fire (assuming the claim is that the bush was on fire but
not being burnt) and that the witness was fully capable of hallucinating
the entire experience.
is a level I'm not prepared to descend to for obvious reasons. Or did
you have some other non-psychological, non-horticultural, evidence
that you based your conclusions on?
Calling a guess like this science is shameful. It's shameful because it's oneand that the witness was fully capable of hallucinating
the entire experience.
of an infinite number of possible explanations. I thought I made this fact
clear.
I know this isn't actual evidence on your part & as such I didn't mentionA simple scientific explanation is given for all parts
of the claim, its up to the claimant to now show why they aren't apt."
it but it contains something so ridiculous that the only way you could
make a claim like this is if you weren't paying attention to the
conversation:Then let's change the scenario a little bit to illustrate my point. How would scientists analyse a burning bush that only spoke thousands of years ago?
You are supposed to be defending the claim that we, 2000 years later,
can scientifically analyze the burning bush scenario - when the witness,
assuming there was a witness, is dead. So with this in mind how could
you seriously say that "its up to the claimant to now show why they aren't
apt"? This just makes no sense other than as a rhetorical cop out.Mark Hamill wrote: »
Strawman. I didn't make that argument to you. I merely said it was possible and that it was up to the claimant to produce more evidence to eliminate this possibility.sponsoredwalk wrote:It's not scientific evidence to say that a person was hallucinating just
because some people hallucinate. I dare you to make that argument
with a straight face to a psychologist :pac:
Must have been a different Mark Hamill who said:Mark Hamill wrote: »we know that people can lie about events like this, we know that people can hallucinate events like this. Both these possibilities fit the evidence, so without further evidence to contradict, they are both acceptable conclusions.
So scientistic standards not only allow for two possible conclusions for one
event, they also simultaneously argue that both of these conclusions are
only possibilities. Perfectly sensible... Unlike scientism, science does not
allow two conclusions for one event as both being what happened. This
quote of yours really says it all I think, I couldn't inform people about
what scientism stands for any better. I guess this is how advanced
scientism is, the relativity of interpretations is something my
pre-sciensteinian brain hasn't grappled with :pac:
As to what you said, I'm sorry but I fail to see how this is anything but
pure deceit. It's not up to the claimant it's up to you, if we were
having a different conversation where you weren't saying that we, 2000
years later, could scientifically analyze this burning bush scenario then
you might not be trying to deceive us with comments like this & instead
be making a valid point. Shifting responsibility to a dead man here is no
help when you've told us we can be scientific about this without the help
of the supposed dead man. It's the British libel law approach, tell us
the claimant is making a scientific claim, despite not a single word
existing of him ever saying that, & then using the system to argue
that it's actually up to the claimant to disprove the statement only
you've ever made :pac:Mark Hamill wrote: »
And where the hell did I say that?sponsoredwalk wrote:More vagueness, explain to us why it's less likely that the person was hallucinating as opposed to the claim that the person was actually insane, or maybe the person was lying?
I asked you to explain to us why it's less likely that scenario A is less
likely than scenario B, or C, or D, or E, or F. To say something scientific
we need to be able to distinguish out of the space of possiblities why
something is more likely than the other, especially when there are an
infinite number of possibilities. How could I be attributing to you an
argument that you were picking A = hallucination over B = lying, C =
insane or D = fooled, when I mentioned the exact examples you gave
in this very quote & I said in my last post
I really think you are fundamentally missing the point I was making if youwell if you can't even distinguish between 6 scenarios, or even more we
can just invent, then this is not science, it's - to repeat the phrase -
guesswork.
think I was attributing any one of the scenarios to you, I mean it's the
exact opposite of my argument. My point was that you cannot
distinguish between scenario A, or B, or C, or D, or E, or F. That is the
whole point, the complete opposite of attributing scenario A, or B,... to
you. Now here is a deep fact about this argument, you are trying to tell
us that you can scientifically determine anything about this event. This is
simply false if you can't even distinguish one amongst a no. of scenarios
reaching ∞, & other scenarios we could just invent. It's fair to say we're
dealing with a scientific issue if there are maybe 3 possible explanations
all backed up with relevant evidence, it's not scientific to say an infinite
number of scenarios as possible explanations is science.Mark Hamill wrote: »In this case, those possibilities are all we have, without more evidence. We dont say we know what happened for sure with the claim, but each possibility is more likely than the claim itself.
Your 'evidence' allows for an infinite number of possible scenarios. I mean
I emphasize the number 6 because they are distinct enough, but to be
pedantic about it we can change the variables so as to allow for an infinite
number of possibilities (Could have been a talking hay pile, could have
been a talking stone, could have been a talking cat, could have been
anything, who knows how many way the story has changed through time,
maybe the christians changed the story from a talking snake to avoid
confusing the illiterate masses of the day due to the similarities with the
snake in the garden of eden, there's plenty of evidence of them purposely
doing things like this so who knows??? I gave 'evidence' of this as well :pac:).Mark Hamill wrote: »Accurate or not, you have attempted to portray my entire argument as being purely in terms of the horticultural evidence, multiple times. Its not just a case that you think this is only bit of substance, you have continuously tried to portray everything else I said in terms of horticulture, despite how crazy it was.
There are three reasons for this, first is your devotion vagueness which
leaves me no choice but to eliminate the possibility you were trying to
argue horticulturally, the second is that it's the only claim you're making
that could be considered (until we pull back the veil of vagueness)
scientifically & third that I really thought you weren't basing conclusions
on subjective guessing. Mix the authority of big sounding words with
vague references to "evidence", especially when the word "conclude" is
used & I've just got no choice.
Again, since you're supposed to be arguing that this can be scientifically
examined seriously I'm going to consider the scientific evidence you've
been offering. In your devotion to vague arguments I've had to do your
work for you & have tried to apply horticulture to this argument, since
you're the one who brought it up. I honestly cannot believe you were
using psychology to tell us anything about the fire given it's ridiculously
uncertain status due to it's inherent variability.
Furthermore, apply your own logic to someone who doesn't believe in
the real numbers. If they offer up some faulty proof as part of a paper
that is chock full of 'logical' arguments for why they think the real
numbers don't exist, & the referee totally ignores those arguments &
focuses solely on the proof - would you waste you're time listening to
the person complain that the referee only focused on the proof & not the
logical arguments? Replace this with a physicist refereeing a paper on
the non-existence of parallel universes or whatever. I said I wouldn't
waste my time on your other 'scientific evidence'. You have still offered
us absolutely no way to discern between at least 6 equally likely
contenders for the spot of 'scientific fact' as regards this question.
Instead the admittance that many explanations is acceptable for our
conversation & that continual attempts to shirk responsibility to a dead
man after originally claiming we could do it here & now also makes sense,
somehow....Mark Hamill wrote: »So now you are saying that a horticulturist wouldn't be able to tell you if a plant could talk, that the people who grow and cultivate plants wouldn't know if they had the ability to make conversation ? Are you f*cking kidding me?
Oh good god, that's not what I said at all.Mark Hamill wrote: »Do you understand how science works? Because you really aren't showing it at all. These guesses? They're called hypothesis and what we do is see if these hypotheses are supported by any evidence. If we get an hypothesis supported by all the evidence (and assuming there is plenty of evidence) we can accept this hypothesis as being reasonably likely to be true. In our case we have multiple hypotheses, which all support the evidence, which all dont require us to throw out everything we know about plant biology, so scientifically, all we do is offer them as possibilities and request more evidence so that we can eliminate them. I would have thought only the likes of JC and Dead One would get science as wrong as you are.
Again, you said we'd be able to scientifically determine the scientific
veracity of this claim 2000+ years later. Thus far all you've offered us
is a potentially infinite number of explanations & vague hypothetical's
none of which I am unaware of.Mark Hamill wrote: »I would have thought only the likes of JC and Dead One would get science as wrong as you are.
Mistyped? I don't know how you can equate me to JC in any way
considering how much time I wasted pointing out, in far more
excruciating detail than I've shown here, how every statement of his
was contradicting previous statements, how every single sentence
was incorrect using studies & links to back every claim up, A big
waste of time I admit but you really musn't have seen the amount
of this. I've purposely stayed out of the BCC thread in that forum
because I know it would become unmanageable with more than one
to deal with :pac: I'm proud of that thread in the way you'd be proud of
a scar, so honestly you really must not have seen it at all in making this
claim :pac: Furthermore I do find it hilarious to claim I'm getting science
wrong seeing as your only justification, in the spirit of the scientific
method, nothing but an assertion ignoring the very real fact about
the 6 possibilities. What's even more amazing though is in this paragraph
you refer to these as hypotheses, while I've got your own quotes in the
very same post calling fewer than 6 hypotheses scientific conclusions :pac:Mark Hamill wrote: »You dont know that the plant was acting under abnormal circumstances, all you have is a claim, so you cant assume that it was abnormal circumstances. We can assume it was normal circumstances, and examine other possibilities for what happened, possibilities that dont require talking plants.
Oh good god, we'll give this argument a name now. We'll call it the plant
fallacy, it's a fallacy because, as I explained in the famous "elongated
rant", if we even pretend that the plant was involved in this situation as
anything other than a vector of god or normal we open up a can of logical
nightmare. Either the plant was acting under abnormal circumstances
or the circumstances of the plant are totally irrelevant. Jesus I don't
know how tautologically clear this is, in all possible scenarios the
plant acting normally is excluded just as the we ignore how green the
grass of the first garden true north of the supposed area was in 1874.
So again, what I quoted was an argument from the authority of irrelevant
evidence. Whats far more revealing is your response here in no way
justifies your earlier statement but instead just tries to save face with
an (already discredited) argument. I've given plenty of reasons why
normal circumstances are completely irrelevant, you've offered nothing
but the negation of my statement with an argument which my original
reasoning already dismissed as ridiculous.Mark Hamill wrote: »I said a dozen posts ago that when examining a supernatural claim, you must alter it to make it falsifiable, so that you can eliminate possibilities. If you claim that you cant do this, then you are saying that any claim worded to include the supernatural cannot be tested, which causes some pretty damn obvious problems for anything we have, do or will test, as you can word any claim to involve the supernatural, if you like. You inability to see that I was just being pedantic by invoking horticulture just makes you look the fool, not me.
You weren't pedantic enough, a very revealing fact. Also I would love
to read where this claim falsifiable. I doubt you made it falsifiable yet
as you've offered us up at least four potential explanations from
psychology, all equally untestable because, as we know from the
science of plumbing, that because things erode therefore the brain
matter of the person in question has eroded. How we run falsifiable
psychological tests on non-existent brain matter to allow us to make
a claim beyond the speculative is beyond me, read nothing thus far of
this kind & nothing but speculation on the periphery of this topic.
I'd love to read how you refute the potential infinite number of
explanations all not stemming from psychology, all modifiable to suit
my biases at will but still possible. Where you were educated that the
premises leading to such ridiculous conclusions is deserving of the label
of science I have no idea, but I'd love to read it.Mark Hamill wrote: »Explain to me what is different between saying "we know from biology that plants dont talk, therefore we can say the plant didn't talk" and "we know from psychology that people can hallucinate, therefore its possible the witness hallucinated"?
I asked you to present your best evidence & you respond with this
Furthermore that's not what you said, you chose the specific big science
word of horticulture. I've gone into this issue already, I like the switch to
biology here btwMark Hamill wrote: »Ah. now I see why you keep getting it wrong. You know how you only recognise the horticultural evidence and dont recognise any other evidence I have brought up? Well, you see I do recognise that other evidence, and all that evidence together allows me to make those individual conclusions. But I have no more based my conclusion that the witness could have hallucinated on horticulture than I based the conclusion that the bush didn't speak on psychology Such an empty headed leap of logic would require a run and jump for most people to reach.
Jesus
This is another very convenient comment about me full of vague
insinuations. Very convincing until you realize I've asked you more
than once to show me your best the evidence you've got besides
horticulture. All you've got are comments about lying, hallucination, all
stemming from psychology without a word as to how we, 2000+ years
later, would test any of this or potentially could. Instead I've seen shirking
of responsibility. Also, the very existence of so much potential evidence
invalidates it as being evidence. Notice that every change in my equally
likely scenarios is a vital change, if it was a hay pile instead of a bush
then okay, we've found out the truth it was possibility 8943828192 out of
the infinite space of possibilities. if it was a rock instead of a bush then
okay, we've found out the truth it was possibility 38423897219812 out of
the infinite space of possibilities. if it was a frog instead of a bush then
okay, we've found out the truth it was possibility 98748911111 out of
the infinite space of possibilities. if it was a waking, talking, aborting
rib instead of a bush then okay, we've found out the truth it was
possibility 9834732982377893982892389238957289527892437982374
8923748923742987823498 out of the infinite space of possibilities.
...
...
if it was half a bush instead of a bush then okay, we've found out the
truth it was possibility 32902389023849023849023842904889202323
out of the infinite space of possibilities. if it was half a hay pile instead of
a bush then okay, we've found out the truth it was possibility 82948239
out of the infinite space of possibilities....
....
....
We need more than maybe, possibly, might-be, potentially 'evidence'
to make an actual scientific claim. Until we have more than the maybe,
likely, hopefully... possibilities then it's not science, it's guessing. Again,
guessing isn't "Elephant" to 2 + 3 = _?
I don't make the rules about what really happened, I see no reason other
than personal bias (well founded in my opinion, but still bias no matter
how you sugar coat it) to say that a naturalistic explanation is what really
happened. A scientific explanation is limited if a non-natural explanation
is possible, surely that elementary logic makes sense despite your bias
to wilfully ignore that which cannot be put in scientific terms.Mark Hamill wrote: »(I may not be reading thsi point right, but assuming I am People will always have biases and beliefs, should we shy away from examining anything because our biases might get in the way? Or should we attempt to overcome them or make checks against them to weaken their hold?
That's really not what I meant, I was talking about assumptions & beliefs
far deeper than this, such as whether the concept of evidence is a concept
you're going to choose to even take seriously as a notion.Mark Hamill wrote: »It is confirmed that plants dont talk, that people can be fooled, can lie, exaggerate and hallucinate. Nothing offered by the claimant can be used to discount any of these possibilities and so its up to the claimant to offer more evidence. Its always up to the claimant to offer more evidence, science is a tool for testing for modelling, but you need to tell it what to test and model. Scientifically we have done what we can with what little evidence we were supplied and we have numerous reasonable possibilities that dont involve supernatural entities. This is only bad for the claimant, not science or the scientist.
You'd be totally right if you hadn't already claimed that we could
scientifically evaluate this 2000+ years later when the claimant is dead.
You have placed the onus on yourself to convince us that it's possible
to say something scientific about this particular event & thus far have
offered us nothing but vague statements like this:Mark Hamill wrote: »It is confirmed that plants dont talk, that people can be fooled, can lie, exaggerate and hallucinate.
as evidence that the claimant might have been lying, exaggerating or
hallucinating. Or are you even saying this? Apparently you're not, you're
not even making a statement this definite because you've scolded me for
what you thought was me attributing a definite argument to you.
But then again we see you also concluding such simultaneuous
occurrences, all very very confusing & at the same time perfectly
sensible All I know is that an infinite number of possible scenarios
is not scientific, you've said we can scientifically evaluate this issue -
but then quickly placing the ball back in the court of the dead witness
because you've found 4 (out of an infinite number of) possibilities.
I don't think this is good enough when you've led us to believe that
we'd be able to do it 2000+ years later.0 -
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(Like my daily mail style headline?)
The story :
Tbh, I don't I like this. I'll admit I'm a romanicist but I do really believe education should be accessible to all walks of society. Either way, insert your usual anti-atheist stuff here.
Is this a response to Religious themed Universities?
Who feckin cares i am not planning on going there anyway:rolleyes:0 -
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sponsoredwalk wrote: »1: The fact that a potentially infinite amount of evidence makes not a scientific claim, I dont know what you are talking about here?
sponsoredwalk wrote: »2: Shifting responsibility to a dead man is not relevant at all to our discussion, in fact it makes no sense considering the conversation we're having,
The responsibility is always on the claimant, thats just how it goes.sponsoredwalk wrote: »3: Irrelevant "evidence" is not evidence of anything scientific
Its not irrelevant. If someone makes a claim concerning X, then what we know about X in general is relevant information.sponsoredwalk wrote: »4: Two, or a potential infinite number of, simultaneous conclusions are not science, they may be scientism, as shown below, but not science.
In science all we ever have is multiple competing hypotheses, with the one being supported by the most evidence (and most, if not all of the evidence) being declared a theory, the claim most likely to be true. Sometimes, because of claims with little enough evidence, we end up with multiple hypotheses all being supported by available evidence, and if no more evidence is forthcoming, then all we can do is present each hypothesis as possible. This, while may be not very useful as a result of its uncertainty, is the most scientifically honest approach.sponsoredwalk wrote: »5: Attributing the exact opposite argument to someone is not helpful.
Still going on about this? You explained your point, how I was reading you wrong, who cares? Move on already.sponsoredwalk wrote: »The rest of your post AKA "My Thesis: Why Mark is Wrong"
Come on, I'm not going to even try to respond to that, because what happens if I do? You just write another, longer, novella in response and so on and so on until we crash boards servers again. You managed to compress everything down at the start into a few straightforward points, leaving out the reams of empty ranting too, so lets try and keep going like this.
I keep meaning to ask, why do your posts come in this long format? Do you type up in word or notepad first or something?0 -
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I spent about a quarter, if not more, of my last post explaining this inMark Hamill wrote: » I dont know what you are talking about here?
detail. If you can't grasp the point I was making at this stage I'm not
wasting my time explaining it again.Mark Hamill wrote: »The responsibility is always on the claimant, thats just how it goes.
I repeated my argument many times in my last post for why you're totally
dishonest in making this argument, must not even paying attention to the
conversation to seriously make an argument like this. If you can't grasp
the point I was making at this stage I'm not wasting my time explaining it
again.Mark Hamill wrote: »
Its not irrelevant. If someone makes a claim concerning X, then what we know about X in general is relevant information.sponsoredwalk wrote:3: Irrelevant "evidence" is not evidence of anything scientific
I've spent a great deal of my time in this thread making it clear what I
meant with this statement, repeating previously unanswered arguments
& pointing out more of the ridiculous logic involved in trodding down this
path in my last post. Just telling me it's not irrelevant doesn't somehow
make it relevant. I've given more than enough arguments for why this
is just ridiculous so if you can't grasp the point I was making at this stage
(let alone offer up a refutative argument worth any merit) I'm not wasting
my time explaining it again.Mark Hamill wrote: »In science all we ever have is multiple competing hypotheses, with the one being supported by the most evidence (and most, if not all of the evidence) being declared a theory, the claim most likely to be true. Sometimes, because of claims with little enough evidence, we end up with multiple hypotheses all being supported by available evidence, and if no more evidence is forthcoming, then all we can do is present each hypothesis as possible. This, while may be not very useful as a result of its uncertainty, is the most scientifically honest approach.
I really took the pIss out of this argument in my last post, however that
time I was emphasizing the laxity of what constitutes a conclusion while
also constituting a hypothesis. Funny how this latest response magically
ignores such nonsense :pac: if you missed that & can't grasp the point
I was making, let alone even see the sheer insanity in such logic then
I'm not wasting my time explaining it again.Mark Hamill wrote: »Still going on about this? You explained your point, how I was reading you wrong, who cares? Move on already.
No, this was a new way you were getting the point I was making totally
wrong. That would be clear had you bothered to read my post.Mark Hamill wrote: »Come on, I'm not going to even try to respond to that, because what happens if I do? You just write another, longer, novella in response and so on and so on until we crash boards servers again.
Well if you had responded to the substance of my argument with
something like this latest example then of course that would happen.
You see in elementary conversations involving ideas the goal is not to
repeat arguments that have already been discounted it's to address
why the discounting of your arguments is wrong. Thus far not even a
tap of this has been offered, instead just a repeat of what has been
discounted. Every post I've added even more reasons for my arguments.
Crying that we'll crash the servers doesn't invalidate any of my points.Mark Hamill wrote: »You managed to compress everything down at the start into a few straightforward points, leaving out the reams of empty ranting too, so lets try and keep going like this.
Look what happened when I did that, you totally ignore the substance of
my arguments & respond with arguments I'd went into detail invalidating.
I posted that summary because I thought you'd actually read my novella
& use the 5 points to make it easier to respond to specific chapters in my
magnum opus. Big mistake giving you a bit of help in summarizing the
consequences of your own ridiculous arguments.Mark Hamill wrote: »I keep meaning to ask, why do your posts come in this long format? Do you type up in word or notepad first or something?
The reasons I'll give cannot be expressed scientifically so as such I doubt
you'll consider them meaningful. So I'm not going to waste my time
responding to a response to this post, I consider it nothing but a way
to ignore the arguments put forth in my above post.
in accordance with the, seemingly permissible, British Libel Law mode of
rhetoric in this thread I'll say that until my points are shown to be wrong
with an honest argument my claims are not only right they are scientific,
because that seems to be the only thing that one understands when under
the spell of scientistic dogmatism.0 -
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