Hawking says there are no gods

[ynot]

Maybe you can explain to me the difference between evidence and possible evidence?

Evidence has been verified and confirmed.

Possible evidence hasn't been verified and confirmed.

This is very basic stuff.

 

[kellyb]

None of that addresses or answers the question (philosoevasion) . . .

My answer is "yes". I did answer that previously when I said "I'm convinced commercial airlines are reasonably safe."

 

[ynot]

My answer is "yes". I did answer that previously when I said "I'm convinced commercial airlines are reasonably safe."

Oh dear! I didn't ask you about commercial airlines. Obviously commercial airlines aren't designed based on "the strength of the evidence is kind of in the eye of the beholder(s)". You do realise that?

Now please answer the actual question . . .

 

[kellyb]

Evidence has been verified and confirmed.

Possible evidence hasn't been verified and confirmed.

This is very basic stuff.

Hahaha!

Where in god's name are you getting that from?

"Possible evidence" hasn't been verified and confirmed to be what or to do what?

Do the phrases "growing body of evidence", "preliminary evidence", "small but growing body of evidence", "insufficient evidence", etc have any meaning to you?

 

[ynot]

Hahaha!

Where in god's name are you getting that from?

"Possible evidence" hasn't been verified and confirmed to be what? or to do what?

Do the phrases "growing body of evidence", "preliminary evidence", "small but growing body of evidence", "insufficient evidence", etc have any meaning to you?

I give up . . . Bye . . . Happy wallowing . . .

 

[kellyb]

Oh dear! I didn't ask you about commercial airlines. Obviously commercial airlines aren't designed based on "the strength of the evidence is kind of in the eye of the beholder(s)". You do realise that?

They actually are. Ask the member here, Trebuche. He's been in charge of doing the initial test flights on those boogers before.

Now please answer the actual question . . .

Would you be happy to fly in a plane that was designed and built based on "the strength of the evidence is kind of in the eye of the beholder(s)"

Yes, and that's exactly what we're doing when we trust the regulatory authorities (FAA, etc) to judge (behold, in their expert eye) if an aircraft is "safe enough". But an aircraft deemed "safe" in Timbucktu by their regulatory authorities might not be deemed "safe enough" in the US by our different standards.

 

[kellyb]

I give up . . . Bye . . . Happy wallowing . . .

I didn't get the sense that you were fluent in the language of scientific uncertainty.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Butting in, sorry. I'm with ynot because possible evidence isn't the same as weak evidence. Maybe it's a pedantic argument.

Perhaps the communicator has a different meaning than the meaning the receiver has but if someone told me 'possible evidence', I would be thinking other conclusions could explain the evidence. That's different from weak evidence of something.

Examples: There is a slightly greater number of hepatitis C infections in phlebotomists compared to matched controls. That is weak, but valid evidence that phlebotomists have an occupational risk of hepatitis C.

The sighting of strange lights in the sky is possible evidence of alien spaceships. That's not weak evidence, it is possible evidence. Given so many other things are more likely to explain the lights than alien craft, it isn't weak evidence and isn't on the evidence continuum you are thinking of.

 

[kellyb]

Butting in, sorry. I'm with ynot because possible evidence isn't the same as weak evidence. Maybe it's a pedantic argument.

Perhaps the communicator has a different meaning than the meaning the receiver has but if someone told me 'possible evidence', I would be thinking other conclusions could explain the evidence. That's different from weak evidence of something.

Examples: There is a slightly greater number of hepatitis C infections in phlebotomists compared to matched controls. That is weak, but valid evidence that phlebotomists have an occupational risk of hepatitis C.

The sighting of strange lights in the sky is possible evidence of alien spaceships. That's not weak evidence, it is possible evidence. Given so many other things are more likely to explain the lights than alien craft, it isn't weak evidence and isn't on the evidence continuum you are thinking of.

I consider "possible evidence" and "weak evidence" close to interchangeable sometimes, but either way, it's all evidence.

Let's break down this quote:

http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2011/01/expert-helps-revise-calcium-vitamin-d-guidelines

"The evidence available is inconsistent, with some studies demonstrating this association while others show no association, and still others show evidence of adverse effects with high blood levels of vitamin D," Brannon said. "Thus, it is not possible to conclude whether there is an association of low vitamin D with chronic disease or not."

Obviously, the evidence, when taken in totality, is not "strong" either way there, but it's still all evidence of some kind. That was my only point to ynot, who was insisting that "Evidence" and "possible evidence" are distinctly different", which is not necessarily true, and his/her idea that "real evidence" has been "verified" and "confirmed", whereas "possible evidence" has not, which is absolutely not true and is a sort of nonsense concept, scientifically-speaking.

A data point is a data point and is evidence if it's being used to support a claim, regardless of how small, insignificant, or flawed someone else might judge said piece of evidence to be ("If the glove don't fit, you must acquit!" being a pretty classic example.)

With your phlebotomist example, it sounds to me like what I'd call "moderately strong evidence of a very slightly elevated risk".

Re: the lights in the sky and the possibility of it being aliens, I'd say that depends on factors having to do with the nature of the sighting. Was it caught on film by numerous sources? What do the people at NASA have to say about it? Or the Air Force?

If it was caught on film by numerous sources, and if, say, there's some international consensus among governments and aeronautics agencies that it's not currently explainable outside of "the alien hypothesis", then I'd call it possible evidence, weak evidence, or maybe even moderately strong evidence, if I were in the right mood. LOL If the sighting was just reported as an anecdote on youtube, or something like that, I'd call it something like "too weak of a form of evidence to even waste 2 seconds thinking about."

The situation in which the phrase "possible evidence" seems most fitting to me is a situation where if the claim the evidence is broght forth to support turns out to be true, it's revolutionary. I think this is the case with physics and evidence supporting multiple universes/a multiverse or the many worlds hypothesis.

Here's a quote from physicists talking about a multiverse:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/0712.2454.pdf?origin=publication_detail

The discovery of dark energy has verified a remarkable prediction of the multiverse; but this could be undermined by the discovery of an alternative solution to the cosmological constant problem. The nuclear stability boundaries imply at least 1% fine-tuning in any known theory, and the multiverse allows a striking understanding of mu,d,e. Our current theories of electroweak symmetry breaking are unnatural; a confirmation by the LHC would solidify evidence for the multiverse in a third arena. Even with Pnuc and PEWSB much larger than PΛ, the three arenas together would provide significant, robust evidence for a multiverse.

So, dark energy seems to be taken as at least weak evidence (or "possible evidence", depending on how you want to look at it and phrase it) of a multiverse, and they've identified the sort of evidence that they say would move the hypothesis into the realm of being backed by "significant, robust evidence". Thus, I think qayak's word choice "We also see evidence of things outside our universe having effects on our universe" is basically defensible. I would just lean toward describing it as "possible evidence" because of the revolutionary nature of its implications.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

All of those philosophical paths start with the initial biological evolution.

Yes, and they lead to the fact that there is no truth for what good and bad is. In other words in scientific terms that is no evidence possible.
If realism in meta-ethics was true, you could use science on good and bad. Realism in meta-ethics is not true and that translates to no evidence in science.

In other words, good and bad can't be replicated using the scientific method. Scientists can observe that humans do morality and explain that using science, but you can't do morality using science.

And that is where this "derail" started. You claim you can use science not just to explain morality, but do morality. The former is true, that latter is not.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Hi JayUtah

Standards in philosophy.
In one sense there are standards in philosophy and in another there is not.

What is the standards: That you know enough about philosophy in general, its subdivisions, that you can do logic, that you can check a text for internal consistency, find any hidden assumptions if they are there and compare to other POV.

But there is no standard in the following sense:
Skeptic Ginger linked to a philosophical text about ethics and biology. It end with the following: There are 3 positions on meta-ethics and if you check 2 of them are in contradiction to the 3rd one.
That means that there is no standard as in science. The standard in science is that you can replicate and get the same results. In some forms of philosophy you can "replicate" and get a contradictory result and both claims are still philosophy.

So am I a philosopher? Yes, I get the limits of philosophy and I can point them out. I know what you can do using philosophy and what you can't do in practice. I understand the field and get the different approaches. I have my own POV, all philosophers have. We are of different schools of thought.

 

[psionl0]

Flatland is fiction. The Bible (another work of fiction) also gives an idea how and why existence "could work". I find neither even slightly credible.

Unlike supernatural speculations, thought experiments like flatland can give us some new insights.

A world with 4 spatial dimensions can only be described mathematically but there are some interesting observations that can be made from it. For example, a knot can always be unraveled by pulling on the ends of the string in a 4-D world.

However, it appears that the laws of physics would not work in a 4-D world. A fundamental property of the forces of attraction/repulsion is that they are proportional to the square of the distances between the objects. In a 4-D world, they would be proportional to the cube of the distances between the objects and that would mess everything up.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Yes, and they lead to the fact that there is no truth for what good and bad is. In other words in scientific terms that is no evidence possible....

No, they don't. It's clear you didn't read the link, or if you did you don't understand it.

The paper presented three models for how morality might be arrived at given the biological beginning and the nature of human societies.

You are so focused on "no truth' whatever that means that you don't appear to understand the evidenced based models being put forth.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

No, they don't. It's clear you didn't read the link, or if you did you don't understand it.

The paper presented three models for how morality might be arrived at given the biological beginning and the nature of human societies.

You are so focused on "no truth' whatever that means that you don't appear to understand the evidenced based models being put forth.

The 3 models for meta-ethics include one that states it is without truth(not facts); one that good and bad are emotions and not subject to reason and logic; and one that good and bad are facts and subject to truth(and science).

Now as it stands neither of us win in the strong sense, but you loose, because 2 of the models support my claim and not all 3 support yours.
So you haven't show that you can use science to do morality and the text indicates that there might be a problem with your claim.
Now since I didn't write that text and it is an expert source, it might be an idea that you check your claim that you can do morality using science.

 

[David Mo]

So a 30 year old book on ancient Greek myths is supposed to support what exactly?

That the Greek religion wasn't Walt Disney.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

That the Greek religion wasn't Walt Disney.

How is that relevant to the thread?

 

[David Mo]

According to the Greeks Zeus lived on and ruled from Olympus.

According Wikipedia.

 

[David Mo]

How is that relevant to the thread?

Because ancient Greeks' idea of gods cannot be debunked with Google-Earth. It is "a little" more complex than Hercules, the film.

 

[David Mo]

You are just massively snobbish and rude for someone who wants to nanny other people about being mean.

Don't be angry. Surely it is that my English is not very good or that you express yourself somewhat abruptly. By the way, I would ask you not to use abbreviations. I'm not used to them.

 

[David Mo]

1 - He's dead

????

2 - if he believes in any way in an interventionist god, then all the above applies to him. If he believes i a non-interventionist god, then he's just making up stories and I'd like to introduce you to the IPU or the FSM

3 - If you'd like me to take his views into account then you're going to have to present them to me, as I'm utterly sure you're aware.

4 - Any attempt to try to send me off to educate myself will be met with the appropriate response.

Since you don't like to read, I'll try to summarize the situation. But it's not easy to summarize someone as complex as Ricoeur, so don't complain if what I tell you is too simple. However, simplicity is often the hardest thing to understand.
First of all, I will summarize the problem because sometimes I have the impression that you forget what is our problem here. The question is whether science can refute the belief in gods.
We agree that science can refute some primary religious beliefs referred to empirical questions. For example: a miracle.

My position is that science is not sufficient to refute all beliefs in god. Because there are some beliefs in god that are not so primary. Therefore, when you matches all religion with magic, physical miracles or unicorns you are making an undue simplification.

For example: when a Christian claims that the sacred host contains de body of Christ his belief wouldn't be refuted by a chemical analysis of the host.He knows perfectly that what he is eating has not the taste and form of meat. He would say that it is Christ's flesh in a superior or metaphysical sense that science cannot grasp. What use of science can you do facing this position?

I would like that we can discuss this before to enter in Ricoeur that is still more complex.

You're suddenly a lot less loquacious than you were.

It's just that sometimes I get tired of repeating the obvious.