Hawking says there are no gods

[kellyb]

I don't know what you mean with "a question" doesn't exist "out of science". I can ask: "Is my girl cheating me?" Is there a theorem about girls who cheat? I doubt that I can solve scientifically this question.

"My girl is not cheating" would be your hypothesis, and you'd search for and gather evidence to nullify it (my girl IS cheating would be the "alternative hypothesis".)

It would be a very crude form of science, but the basic steps would follow the bare bones scientific method.

 

[David Mo]

Like I said, there is overwhelming evidence gods are human generated fiction.
(...)
The scientific process does not generate proofs. That is in the realm of math.

If you want to sit around and discuss fictional gods and call it philosophy, be my guest. But you cannot say what the expected beneficial outcome of such discussions of philosophy are.

Could you quote here a scientific article published in a specialized journal that gives evidence that gods do not exist?

Gee, I didn't know that science doesn't provide proofs that the Earth revolves around the Sun. So how do we know?

From the moment you entered this thread you do nothing but philosophically argue about the existence of God. Believe me, I am sorry.

 

[David Mo]

"My girl is not cheating" would be your hypothesis, and you'd search for and gather evidence to nullify it (my girl IS cheating would be the "alternative hypothesis".)

It would be a very crude form of science, but the basic steps would follow the bare bones scientific method.

The problem is not that I search evidence, but that I don't find scientific evidence.

 

[kellyb]

The problem is not that I search evidence, but that I don't find scientific evidence.

You're a scientific team of one if you read her text messages and find the convincing evidence.

If you have a hypothesis, and you gather evidence to test it, that's (basic) science.

 

[kellyb]

Gee, I didn't know that science doesn't provide proofs that the Earth revolves around the Sun. So how do we know?

The words "proof" and "proofs" are part of the language of math, not science, at least in English.


In science, everything is worded like "Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that _______" , or (much more rarely) "Our data strongly reinforce the previous research demonstrating that ______".

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Could you quote here a scientific article published in a specialized journal that gives evidence that gods do not exist?

Gee, I didn't know that science doesn't provide proofs that the Earth revolves around the Sun. So how do we know?

From the moment you entered this thread you do nothing but philosophically argue about the existence of God. Believe me, I am sorry.

There is a particular standard in science and scientific facts that all knowledge is tentative. We can have a lot of certainty, and this is where communicating science to laypersons is problematic.

Look at a past example, it was believed in medicine that stomach ulcers were the result of excess acid production. That was the standard 'fact' for decades. Then along come a couple researchers who discover H-pylori, a bacterial cause of gastric ulcers. We now have a new 'fact'.

That is an important piece of the scientific process. You can be very certain, but the door is always open for new evidence to emerge.

It's just terminology and principle. It doesn't mean we can't function with tentative scientific facts until and unless new evidence emerges.

And what kellyb said ^.

 

[David Mo]

The words "proof" and "proofs" are part of the language of math, not science, at least in English.


In science, everything is worded like "Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that _______" , or (much more rarely) "Our data strongly reinforce the previous research demonstrating that ______".

This is not exact. See Oxford dictionary and search in Google Scholar. You will see how the word "proof" or "prove" is also applied in natural sciences and others. Try with "proofs second law", for example.

 

[David Mo]

You're a scientific team of one if you read her text messages and find the convincing evidence.

If you have a hypothesis, and you gather evidence to test it, that's (basic) science.

I don't know what "basic" science means. The method of science is hypothetico- deductive. Controlled experience.
In my example we have not any message. Don't say that you are unable to imagine a situation where you have not full evidence in any sense. Don't tease me.

 

[psionl0]

The problem is not that I search evidence, but that I don't find scientific evidence.

I'm with kellyb on this one. You didn't ask for "scientific" evidence, you asked if you can "solve scientifically this question" and kellyb outlined a scientific method that you can employ.

It's the same with God and science. You could also devise a hypothesis that you can test. The difference is that in this case there is no test ("scientific" or otherwise) that you can run on the hypothesis.

 

[David Mo]

There is a particular standard in science and scientific facts that all knowledge is tentative. We can have a lot of certainty, and this is where communicating science to laypersons is problematic.

Look at a past example, it was believed in medicine that stomach ulcers were the result of excess acid production. That was the standard 'fact' for decades. Then along come a couple researchers who discover H-pylori, a bacterial cause of gastric ulcers. We now have a new 'fact'.

That is an important piece of the scientific process. You can be very certain, but the door is always open for new evidence to emerge.

It's just terminology and principle. It doesn't mean we can't function with tentative scientific facts until and unless new evidence emerges.

And what kellyb said ^.

In short, you cannot present any scientific article that deals with the subject of God's existence. Instead, you extend the concept of science to such an extent that even a comment in this forum could be science. That's not serious. Science is perfectible. That is clear. But it has a precise method for perfecting itself. Not opinions about the existence of God.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Tommy, you don't even understand your own position well enough to be able to describe it coherently. You're really not in a position to start telling others what they believe.

Okay, here we go.

Ever heard of a philosophical system; i.e. e.g. a belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school.
Now when you analyze that, you notice "accepted as authoritative by some group or school". That leads to the following to the following question:
Has there ever been in the recorded history of mankind been a foundational system of self-evident beliefs, which in a coherent manner describes all of the universe?
In short, is there one and only one correct(reason, logic/truth/proof and evidence) way of explaining the universe, reality, everything and so on?

That is epistemology and logic combined and requires that you check logic and knowledge and test if there are limits.
So here it is for skepticism as connected to falsifiable. To check something requires that you are aware if you use verification versus falsification and that you understand the difference. Read Popper if you have to.
The end game is this, you can't trust verification, because of the psychology involved. You will continue to use ad hocs to explain away negatives.
If you use skepticism, you accept some negatives, because you don't take for given that a result must be positive.

And back to coherent, so if you take for granted that everything is coherent, you will explain any result of non-coherence as gibberish, where as I accept it, because just as I accept there is a limit to human mobility, there is a limit to reason, logic/truth/proof and evidence.
You start with that everything must be meaningful. I check if everything is meaningful and if it is not, I accept that.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Now here is an example, a weak analogy.
For 2+2=4, 2+2=11 and 2+2=5 the following is true, depending on useful, namely it is generally accepted that 2+2=5 is not useful(thanks, JayUtah) and in other words, math is limited for its usefulness. I.e. math has a limit, because it is not useful if you try do everything with math.
The same could be so for in general for making sense, meaningful, relevant, real, true and so on.
E.g. so if truth just as math has a useful limit, you will if you test that end up with a functional negative; i.e. gibberish, irrelevant, meaningless, absurd and so on.
That is in practice the difference between going for truth or falsehood. To me as a skeptic, false matters more than true, because my approach is to find the limits of the human existence and experience.
So it is not a dichotomy between true and false, it is to answer that if truth has a limit, thus when you test that you will find a false result.
So I accept that you can do that differently and I accept, that you don't accept, that I can do it differently.
It is all about how we treat positives and negatives and the acceptance or denial of that it can be different. If to you a difference is negative, I accept that. I just do it differently.

 

[kellyb]

This is not exact. See Oxford dictionary and search in Google Scholar. You will see how the word "proof" or "prove" is also applied in natural sciences and others. Try with "proofs second law", for example.

The physicists are always talking about math when they use that word.

For example:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9302017.pdf

The aim of this paper is to present a simple explicit proof of the generalized second law for quasistationary changes of a generic charged rotating black hole emitting, absorbing, and scattering any sort of radiation in the Hawking semiclassical formalism (quantum radiation fields in the classical spacetime background of a black hole whose conserved quantities change by the expectation values of the flux of radiation out of or into it). This proof may be considered to be a mathematical fleshing out of some of the verbal arguments of Zurek, Thorne, and Price [9, 10].

 

[kellyb]

I don't know what "basic" science means. The method of science is hypothetico- deductive. Controlled experience.
In my example we have not any message. Don't say that you are unable to imagine a situation where you have not full evidence in any sense. Don't tease me.

Then you hire a private investigator to "stalk" her if you want to, or hack into her email.

If you can't find any strong evidence, then the answer is unknown.

 

[Darat]

In short, you cannot present any scientific article that deals with the subject of God's existence. Instead, you extend the concept of science to such an extent that even a comment in this forum could be science. That's not serious. Science is perfectible. That is clear. But it has a precise method for perfecting itself. Not opinions about the existence of God.

Have you forgotten the article that this thread is about?

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Have you forgotten the article that this thread is about?

Yes,

"I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science," Hawking, who died in March, wrote. "If you accept, as I do, that the laws of nature are fixed, then it doesn't take long to ask: What role is there for God?"

I think that the universe was created by God, according eternal love from God and if you accept, as I do, that the laws of nature are from God, then it doesn't take long to ask: What role is there for science in explaining the universe?

I reject both, that is not what science is nor what religion is if you look closer. Science and religion both have a role, but is not the above given if you start with finding the limits of truth through practically applied skepticism and accept limits to all - science, philosophy AND religion.

 

[Chanakya]

No.

The appeal to popularity fallacy relates to imagining that the truth value of a proposition is somehow affected by how many people believe in it.

That isn't what I was saying. I wasn't saying that ~6B people believing in something means that what they're believing is true, or even that that increases the likelihood of its being true. What I was saying is that the 6B numbers of belivers makes it more likely that we'll engage with them as far as this issue. That's all. (The rest follows from this directly. Effective engagement with someone would/might imply taking their POV seriously enough to properly evaluate what they are saying, ergo the greater precision around this issue.)

...I'm being blunt...

...Again, I am being blunt. ...

Blunt is good. That means I don't have to waste words with courtesies that you appear tone-deaf to. Blunt lets me point out to you that it's pretty stupid to have inferred -- as you apparently did (unless you were being deliberately disingenuous) -- from my asking you to define this fallacy and explain how what I'd said qualifies, that I wasn't aware of that fallacy or how to look that up.

Like I'd said, last time I'd logged in here was from my phone, which isn't really conducive to typing long posts. Had you complied with my request, and clearly gone through your full argument right from the definition on (like I've done just now), then you would have discovered for yourself your mistake in imagining that my argument is an appeal-to-popularity fallacy; or else, it could be, that you would have been able to spell out clearly how what you're thinking makes sense, in which case I'd have no issues accepting that.

Now that I've spelt out my argument -- I'd done as much, although less in detail, in my earlier post as well -- I hope you can now see that this was not an appeal-to-popularity fallacy; and in as much as this argument is not fallacious, the exceptionalism is based on valid reasons, so that it isn't a special-pleading fallacy either.

I trust you will now be able to see your mistake for what it was, and will not double down on your original error simply on a I'm-saying-it-so-it's-correct-and-no-I-won't-deign-to-clearly-explain basis? Again, if you're clearly able to show your argument to be effective, I've no issues accepting it, so feel free to present a cogent counter-argument if you can; but it seems silly to keep repeating your claim again and again, like you'd done last time, and imagining that simply your saying it somehow makes it true.

 

[Chanakya]

[qimg]https://media.giphy.com/media/wqg2wpmE2nJwA/source.gif[/qimg]

Hey, Joe.

Yeah, nice grab of cute dog jumping through hoops. For some reason it showed up as a static image on my phone when I'd last logged in here to these forums (I was on my phone last time, not my computer), which is why I'd asked you to explain it.

That grab's ironical, actually.

You've written reams of posts around that time, addressing me (or at least quoting me), which I'm not replying to separately because they're basically content-free.

I'd shown you clearly, in that post the other day, that you are plain mistaken in what you imagine a special-pleading fallacy is. You haven't been able to present a clear cogent counter-argument, although you've put in enough posts repeating ipse dixit pronouncements of your beliefs and your likes and dislikes and your general philosophy in life (which copious strings of content-free text I see no point in replying to invidually).

Nonpareil's disagreement with me has apparently emboldened you into imagining that this bolsters your position, but it does not. Your original error remains an error. Nonpareil's objection was not directly related to that original error of yours. In any case, I believe Nonpareil is clearly mistaken in his/her assessment, and I've tried to show him/her just where their mistake lies; but sure, I'm open to changing my view if they, even now, are able to clearly argue their case.

Yeah, so the grab's ironical, since what you're doing here (at least in your discussion with me) is simply jumping unthinkingly and repeatedly through the hoops of your own unexamined biases. Like the puppy, it's cute, what you're doing, but it's no more.

Of course, you can always have a go at clearly backing up your claims of having seen fallacies in my arguments, by clearly arguing your case. That's something you can always do. Like with Nonpareil, if what you say makes sense, I have no issues accepting it.

 

[David Mo]

The physicists are always talking about math when they use that word.

For example:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9302017.pdf

“Experimental Proof of the Existence of a New Electronic Complex in Silicon”,
J. R. Haynes
Phys. Rev. Lett. 4, 361 – Published 1 April 1960

“Silicene: Compelling Experimental Evidence for Graphenelike Two-Dimensional Silicon”,
Patrick Vogt, Paola De Padova, Claudio Quaresima, Jose Avila, Emmanouil Frantzeskakis, Maria Carmen Asensio, Andrea Resta, Bénédicte Ealet, and Guy Le Lay
Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 155501 – Published 12 April 2012

“Question of parity conservation in weak interactions”,
TD Lee, CN Yang - Physical Review, 1956 – APS

“Existence of a photonic gap in periodic dielectric structures”,
KM Ho, CT Chan, CM Soukoulis - Physical Review Letters, 1990 – APS

“Experimental proof of the existence of Ampere's molecular currents”,
A Einstein, WJ De Haas - Proc. KNAW, 1915 –

Etc.
Etc.
Etc…


Do you want any more?
Don’t you say me that an “experimental proof” is also mathematics. Please.

 

[David Mo]

Then you hire a private investigator to "stalk" her if you want to, or hack into her email.

If you can't find any strong evidence, then the answer is unknown.

I have no money to pay a detective.

No. I have some indications.

Don't say me that you are unable to imagine a situation where you have to make a decision without absolute evidence. This is ridiculous.