Hawking says there are no gods

[JayUtah]

How many god myths do you need to demonstrate before you stop looking for gap gods.

The by-the-book answer is that you have to consider "gap gods" as a possibility every time you consider something that has been attributed to gods, and if science wants to eliminate that possibility in any applicable case it has to specifically control for it. Of course science doesn't actually operate that way. The more appropriate stick-and-rudder answer is that science gets to consider a priori plausibility based on the gestalt of past findings. For example, in testing electromagnetic phenomena, we stopped having to expressly test for and rule out luminiferous ether a long time ago.

 

[Belz...]

The by-the-book answer is that you have to consider "gap gods" as a possibility every time you consider something that has been attributed to gods, and if science wants to eliminate that possibility in any applicable case it has to specifically control for it. Of course science doesn't actually operate that way. The more appropriate stick-and-rudder answer is that science gets to consider a priori plausibility based on the gestalt of past findings. For example, in testing electromagnetic phenomena, we stopped having to expressly test for and rule out luminiferous ether a long time ago.

Yes it's interesting that there's no Ether-of-the-gaps theory.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The by-the-book answer is that you have to consider "gap gods" as a possibility every time you consider something that has been attributed to gods, and if science wants to eliminate that possibility in any applicable case it has to specifically control for it. Of course science doesn't actually operate that way. The more appropriate stick-and-rudder answer is that science gets to consider a priori plausibility based on the gestalt of past findings. For example, in testing electromagnetic phenomena, we stopped having to expressly test for and rule out luminiferous ether a long time ago.

Well said, except I think you might say 'knee-jerk' answer rather than by-the-book answer. What book would that be?

 

[JayUtah]

Well said, except I think you might say 'knee-jerk' answer rather than by-the-book answer. What book would that be?

I will accept that correction. Thank you.

 

[BadBoy]

I called it a conceivable reason. My evidence for that is that many people have conceived it as a reason since time immemorial and continue to do so today.

fair enough

That said, when did "X must be shown to exist before it can be postulated as a reason for observed phenomenon Y" get added to the Rules of Science?

Erwin Schroedinger certainly wasn't following any such rule, when he helped kick off the search for the material basis of genetics in 1944 by suggesting the heredity substance must be an "aperiodic crystal" despite no such crystal being known to exist at the time. (There are more obvious examples—hi again, cosmologists!—but that one is really cool.)

hmm. Is that different somehow? I don't pretend to understand or know anything about that, but presumably making predictions in science based on some firm premises and calculations and following that to some logical conclusion that predicts something that should exist in nature is different to just including a God (and everything else we could make up) in all the possible solutions. Certainly I am not incorrect in guessing that that would also have been a falsifiable predication in science. Presumably Schroedinger didn't say the heredity substance must be an "aperiodic crystal", or a God.

 

[MRC_Hans]

The issue raised by the OP is the question of generalizing from experience.

We examine a volcano and find that it's caused by subterranean heat and pressure, rather than by the anger of a volcano god. We examine fifty volcanos and find that all of them are caused by subterranean heat and pressure, and not one by the anger of volcano gods. But then a new volcano erupts somewhere that we've never examined before. Can we say with any confidence that that one's also caused by subterranean heat and pressure, and not by the anger of a volcano god?

Most people (nowadays) would say yes, though some of them would also caution against absolute certainty, and suggest we should probably go there and take a few measurements.

Now instead of fifty volcanos, let's say we've investigated the causes of fifty different natural phenomena. In all cases where we could identify causes, we found causes other than gods. How justifiable, how rational, is the conclusion that no natural phenomena are caused by gods?

*snip for brevity*

I basically agree with your post, but I think objectivity goes for both sides. Not only do we invariably find physical explanations for those phenomena we investigate, but we find no evidence for gods. So even if the 51th volcano is not due to the usual mechanisms, it would not make any immediate sense to attribute it to volcano gods. This is a false dichotomy we often see in such debates: "If you can't explain this, then I am right."

Hans

 

[David Mo]

I've explained my argument at least three times in detail. Stay on the ball, if you please. If someone says he's an expert mechanic and tells you authoritatively what's wrong with your car, that judgment might be questioned if, when asked to verify the operation of the throwout bearing, he pulls the dipstick out of the coolant reservoir.

What expert are you talking about? Do I have to agree with you because you are a self-procalma expert? If you are an expert, answer what I ask you with arguments and data. Can you give an example of that science that develops outside the published scientific literature?
Then we will have something to discuss. Otherwise we don't anything that turn around your empty claims.

 

[David Mo]

hmm. Is that different somehow? I don't pretend to understand or know anything about that, but presumably making predictions in science based on some firm premises and calculations and following that to some logical conclusion that predicts something that should exist in nature is different to just including a God (and everything else we could make up) in all the possible solutions. Certainly I am not incorrect in guessing that that would also have been a falsifiable predication in science. Presumably Schroedinger didn't say the heredity substance must be an "aperiodic crystal", or a God.

Refuting factual claims of religions is relatively easy. Science has done this many times and common sense has done it other times.

But religion has taken refuge in ways that escape the scrutiny of science. This resource has always existed. Even before science existed, when a religion was pressured by philosophical-rational thought got shield in subjective.
Such religions cannot be refuted by science. It takes refuge in the personal and subjective, in faith or its supposed manifestation in private places.
This type of belief can only be defeated by a rationality that relies on science when necessary, but adopts its own resources when necessary. This type of thinking is what is traditionally called philosophy. That of Holbach, Feuerbach, Russell, Diderot, Sartre and many others, even those which without being strictly atheists ("Gnostic atheists") such as Rousseau have given elements of criticism against the pretensions of religion from septicism or rationality.

And that is what awakens the anger of the dogmatic positivists of this forum. Because anything that is not atheir point of view is the demon personified.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Can you give an example of that science that develops outside the published scientific literature?

Speaking as a professional scientist, that's an utterly bizarre question. Published papers are, generally speaking, a summary of significant experimental results and their integration into theories. The process of scientific enquiry does not start with the writing of the first word of a paper; it starts with determining an area of enquiry, then moves on to carrying out the actual work in that area, understanding the results of that work, feeding them back into further work and repeating the cycle as necessary in order to know what it is that the paper is supposed to summarise. It may be different in philosophy; hence, I suppose, the well-known joke that a theoretical physics department is more expensive than a phiilosophy department because the former needs pencils, paper and erasers, whereas the latter only needs pencils and paper. But the supposition that published papers form the totality of science seems rooted in so deep a misunderstanding of what science is, that it seems futile even to try and correct it; there's simply no basis of common understanding from which to start.

Dave

 

[David Mo]

Speaking as a professional scientist, that's an utterly bizarre question. Published papers are, generally speaking, a summary of significant experimental results and their integration into theories.

My question is very strange because the previous JayUtah's assumption of how science works was.

My position is not that all scientific process is reflected in peer review editions. It would be absurd. My position is that specific published papers are significant to search whether a particular question has been subjected to scientific enquiry.

 

[JayUtah]

What expert are you talking about?

The example was meant to represent you. You're pretending to be an expert on science, but you demonstrably know little about how it's practiced.

Can you give an example of that science that develops outside the published scientific literature?

You mean besides the examples I've already given? The ones you're frantically trying to demonize and pretend are also somehow not science?

 

[JayUtah]

My question is very strange because the previous JayUtah's assumption of how science works was.

No, your errors are not somehow always your critics' fault. Besides, you haven't gotten my argument right yet. I repeated it several times, to no avail. So no, you don't get to summarize it for the group.

My position is not that all scientific process is reflected in peer review editions. It would be absurd.

That was your position and it was absurd. You said that science done outside the public journals was "rare." Why? Because you were trying to establish the supremacy of that venue so that you could argue that something's absence from it would be probative of inattention toward it from science. What you asserted is simply not true, but you didn't know that. Now you're trying to save face from that error rather than own it.

My position is that specific published papers are significant to search whether a particular question has been subjected to scientific enquiry.

No, your argument placed it well beyond "significant." You specifically argued that the absence of a particular finding from the public academic journals meant it had not yet been "covered" by science.

 

[JoeMorgue]

This is the inherent problem with this sort of "A set can't contain itself" mode of thinking.

Everything we say within the context of some sort of structure or set of rules designed to make it so the ideas we come up with are valid will be countered by David, Tommy, and their ilk with a context-less, rule-less, "everything goes and you can't prove otherwise because magic might exist" framework they are going to declare over our framework because it's vaguer.

Internet Philosophy (and perhaps real world philosophy I'm not "with it" enough to know) is rapidly turning into a turtles all the way down recursive nightmare of people who want everything explained using a method that's not the the thing being explained.

 

[JoeMorgue]

No, your argument placed it well beyond "significant." You specifically argued that the absence of a particular finding from the public academic journals meant it had not yet been "covered" by science.

That settles it. Scientist need to start witnessing to the non-believers. We can send graduate students around in labcoats and bikes like Mormons.

 

[LarryS]

Speaking as a professional scientist, that's an utterly bizarre question. Published papers are, generally speaking, a summary of significant experimental results and their integration into theories. The process of scientific enquiry does not start with the writing of the first word of a paper; it starts with determining an area of enquiry, then moves on to carrying out the actual work in that area, understanding the results of that work, feeding them back into further work and repeating the cycle as necessary in order to know what it is that the paper is supposed to summarise. It may be different in philosophy; hence, I suppose, the well-known joke that a theoretical physics department is more expensive than a phiilosophy department because the former needs pencils, paper and erasers, whereas the latter only needs pencils and paper. But the supposition that published papers form the totality of science seems rooted in so deep a misunderstanding of what science is, that it seems futile even to try and correct it; there's simply no basis of common understanding from which to start.

Dave

This is DavidMo's point (if I understand him correctly) In the example of Hawking's claim regarding the non-existence of Gods, Hawking could put something together up to the rigor of a scientific paper, or else Hawking is doing some kind of philosophy . . . or simply pulling something out his ass. Now a Hawking's Ass-Pulling may be better than anyone elses . . . but it's still an ass-pulling.

 

[JayUtah]

This is DavidMo's point (if I understand him correctly) In the example of Hawking's claim regarding the non-existence of Gods, Hawking could put something together up to the rigor of a scientific paper, or else Hawking is doing some kind of philosophy . . . or simply pulling something out his ass. Now a Hawking's Ass-Pulling may be better than anyone elses . . . but it's still an ass-pulling.

Or he could be doing something else that doesn't fit David Mo's layman's understanding of what science is and what scientists do. The premise, "science can be only what's published in academic journals," is in question. Defining validity ad hoc to exclude things you don't agree with is neither science nor philosophy.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I've referred to the strawman version of science professed by David and his ilk as "Nothing but labcoats and beakers" as a sarcastic shorthand for the over-simplification of what science is and does.

"But it's not in a journal" is way more outrageous than the silly sarcastic joke version I was using.

 

[Belz...]

I've referred to the strawman version of science professed by David and his ilk as "Nothing but labcoats and beakers" as a sarcastic shorthand for the over-simplification of what science is and does.

It's just part of the effort to belittle science. Those eggheads in labcoats can look into your brain cells but they can't see feelings, man!





...well, actually they can, so there.

 

[LarryS]

Or he could be doing something else that doesn't fit David Mo's layman's understanding of what science is and what scientists do. The premise, "science can be only what's published in academic journals," is in question. Defining validity ad hoc to exclude things you don't agree with is neither science nor philosophy.

He and others have expressed their opinions on what constitutes 'science' - and people can decide where on the continuum they fall. There is no right/wrong answer here. If there was a right/wrong answer - that answer would have to be provided by philosophy and not science.

 

[JoeMorgue]

It's just part of the effort to belittle science. Those eggheads in labcoats can look into your brain cells but they can't see feelings, man!

...well, actually they can, so there.

Yep. I can literally walk about thirty steps to the MRI Lab next door and literally see "feelings." It ain't that hard.

Cue some philosophizer drop a 25 page word salad treatise on "qualia" at me.