Monday, May 28, 2012

Evolutionists Are Now Saying Their Thinking is Flawed (But Evolution is Still a Fact)

Morality, as Kant pointed out, hinges neither on success nor on failure. The moral law transcends the material world. The evolutionist’s sophomoric response is that morality evolved and so therefore is not absolute, but rather is relative. That’s like saying water is not wet. And while they’re at it, evolutionists, at least those in the atheist wing, not only deny values, they also deny truth. That’s right, evolutionists—who are constantly making religious truth claims and casting judgments on those who don’t go along with their mandate that evolution is a fact—deny the existence any real morality and truth. You can see the obvious dilemma they have constructed. If there is no morality or truth, then how can evolution be known to be a fact, and how can doubters of this modern mythology be such bad people?

All of this is painfully obvious at the New Scientist which today explains that evolution has bequeathed us with a clouded, flawed thinking process. And just why did we evolve such an apparently flawed instrument? The article explains:

An elegant explanation may have arrived. Hugo Mercier at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and Dan Sperber at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, believe that human reasoning evolved to help us to argue. An ability to argue convincingly would have been in our ancestors' interest as they evolved more advanced forms of communication, the researchers propose.

Yes, we know, evolutionists telling just-so stories are not “researchers.” But the point here is that these “researchers” are making an assertion (human reasoning evolved and is flawed) which undermines their very argument. If human reasoning evolved and is flawed, then how can we know that evolution is a fact, much less any particular details of said evolutionary process that they think they understand via their “research”?

The article continues:

Mercier and Sperber are by no means the first to suggest that the human mind evolved to help us manage a complex social life. It has long been recognised that group living is fraught with mental challenges that could drive the evolution of the brain.

But if these particular mental challenges drove the evolution of the brain, then what guarantee do we have that anything we conclude has any truth value? Why do molecules bouncing around in our head correspond to anything true about the world? How can we be sure that what “has long been recognized” by evolutionists has any useful meaning?

The article also notes how the evolution of language would have been an important influence on how our thinking evolved:

The evolution of language a few hundred thousand years ago would have changed the rules of the game.

But again, why should the force of language on the evolutionary process encourage us that, therefore, our thinking has any ultimate validity?

Indeed, evolutionists conclude that fallacies such as confirmation bias corrupt our conclusions:

Consider the confirmation bias. It is surprisingly pervasive, playing a large part in the way we consider the behaviour of different politicians, for instance, so that we will rack up evidence in favour of our chosen candidate while ignoring their competitor's virtues. Yet people rarely have any awareness that they are not being objective. Such a bias looks like a definite bug if we evolved to solve problems: you are not going to get the best solution by considering evidence in such a partisan way.

If evolutionists believe there is such a “definite bug” in our epistemology, then how can they be so sure evolution is a fact? Is that “definite bug” only a problem for people who don’t insist that everything came from nothing? Our confidence is not helped by the evolutionist’s selective use of evidence and, yes, confirmation bias.

But if we evolved to be argumentative apes, then the confirmation bias takes on a much more functional role. "You won't waste time searching out evidence that doesn't support your case, and you'll home in on evidence that does," says Mercier.

Sound familiar? The article which reveals evolution’s circular logic finally comes around to a precise description of evolutionary thought: “You won’t waste time searching out evidence that doesn't support your case, and you'll home in on evidence that does.”

In their value-laden world where they deny the existence of values, evolutionists insist they know the truth which is that, ultimately, we cannot know the truth.

38 comments:

  1. Cornelius Hunter

    Sound familiar? The article which reveals evolution’ circular logic finally comes around to a precise description of evolutionary thought: “You won’t waste time searching out evidence that doesn't support your case, and you'll home in on evidence that does.”


    Ch, it seems you can't honestly represent a science article if your life depended on it.

    The article didn't single out "evolutionary thought". It was describing an observed phenomenon of ALL human thought. The last line quoted above applies equally to your heavy religious biases, the one you continually deny having.

    The thing is, science knows such biases exist, which is one of the whole reasons science has mechanisms like peer review. Peer review was developed to remove the effects of confirmation bias as much as possible.

    Tell us CH, what mechanism does your religion have for corrections to its own internal confirmation biases?

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    1. Thorton said

      "The thing is, science knows such biases exist, which is one of the whole reasons science has mechanisms like peer review. Peer review was developed to remove the effects of confirmation bias as much as possible."

      And how science correct the biases of the reviewers?

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    2. Thorton:

      The thing is, science knows such biases exist, which is one of the whole reasons science has mechanisms like peer review. Peer review was developed to remove the effects of confirmation bias as much as possible.

      Bzzzt. Wrong. The peer review process was invented precisely to preserve the biases of the group and defend them against outsiders. Peer review is a mechanism invented by a pompous elite in order to reinforce its immunity against public scrutiny. It's an elitist system that uses the public's money while refusing to allow any sort of oversight on their affairs.

      The only way for the peer review process to work properly is to open it to the entire world. This is the way it should be in a democratic society.

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    3. Really,we could vote whether the research was done correctly?

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    4. Blas

      Thorton: "The thing is, science knows such biases exist, which is one of the whole reasons science has mechanisms like peer review. Peer review was developed to remove the effects of confirmation bias as much as possible."

      And how science correct the biases of the reviewers?


      The idea of having multiple independent reviewers is to minimize the chance that they will all have the identical biases themselves. No, it's not a perfect system and no, it doesn't work 100% of the time. But it does work one heck of a lot better than *NO* system of independent review.

      Tell me again Blas, what system of independent review do the religiously motivated IDCers use to minimize their biases?

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    5. Louis Savain

      The only way for the peer review process to work properly is to open it to the entire world. This is the way it should be in a democratic society.


      Every time a paper is publicly presented it is open to critical review and correction by the entire world. Indeed, there are numerous examples of mistakes that were missed by the original reviewers which were later retracted and corrected due to open public scrutiny.

      Doesn't anyone do science on the planet you live on?

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    6. Thorton said

      "The idea of having multiple independent reviewers is to minimize the chance that they will all have the identical biases themselves. No, it's not a perfect system and no, it doesn't work 100% of the time. But it does work one heck of a lot better than *NO* system of independent review."

      Maybe but as you said "It was describing an observed phenomenon of ALL human thought."

      More or less biased science is biased. The effort of pair review is a wast of time and resources.

      "Tell me again Blas, what system of independent review do the religiously motivated IDCers use to minimize their biases?"

      I will not defend IDCers as I`m not one, they can explain you by himselfs. But if if what you said is true it is not important, because always the human though will be biased.

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  2. Dr. Hunter the article reminds me of this following article:

    ,,,The following interview is sadly comical as a evolutionary psychologist realizes that neo-Darwinism can offer no guarantee that our faculties of reasoning will correspond to the truth, not even for the truth that he is purporting to give in the interview, (which begs the question of how was he able to come to that particular truthful realization, in the first place, if neo-Darwinian evolution were actually true?);

    Evolutionary guru: Don't believe everything you think - October 2011
    Interviewer: You could be deceiving yourself about that.(?)
    Evolutionary Psychologist: Absolutely.
    http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128335.300-evolutionary-guru-dont-believe-everything-you-think.html

    The epistemological failure of atheistic materialism is fatal:

    Should You Trust the Monkey Mind? - Joe Carter
    Excerpt: Evolutionary naturalism assumes that our noetic equipment developed as it did because it had some survival value or reproductive advantage. Unguided evolution does not select for belief except insofar as the belief improves the chances of survival. The truth of a belief is irrelevant, as long as it produces an evolutionary advantage. This equipment could have developed at least four different kinds of belief that are compatible with evolutionary naturalism, none of which necessarily produce true and trustworthy cognitive faculties.
    http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/09/should-you-trust-the-monkey-mind

    Alvin Plantinga - Science and Faith Conference - video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVlMK9Ejhb0

    The Absurdity of Inflation, String Theory & The Multiverse - Dr. Bruce Gordon - video
    http://vimeo.com/34468027

    And Dr. Gordon's last powerpoint is here:

    The End Of Materialism?
    * In the multiverse, anything can happen for no reason at all.
    * In other words, the materialist is forced to believe in random miracles as a explanatory principle.
    * In a Theistic universe, nothing happens without a reason. Miracles are therefore intelligently directed deviations from divinely maintained regularities, and are thus expressions of rational purpose.
    * Scientific materialism is (therefore) epistemically self defeating: it makes scientific rationality impossible.

    i.e. if atheistic materialism is true then we could not trust anything we think to actually correspond to the truth of reality! i.e. epistemological failure!

    further notes:

    Presuppositional Apologetics - easy to use interactive website
    http://www.proofthatgodexists.org/index.php

    Epistemology – Why Should The Human Mind Even Be Able To Comprehend Reality? – Stephen Meyer - video – (Notes in description)
    http://vimeo.com/32145998

    Why should the human mind be able to comprehend reality so deeply? - referenced article
    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qGvbg_212biTtvMschSGZ_9kYSqhooRN4OUW_Pw-w0E/edit

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    1. Further note: The following is a bit more clear in pointing out the epistemological failure that results from trying to 'explain away' the extreme fine-tuning of the universe with a quasi-infinite multiverse:

      BRUCE GORDON: Hawking's irrational arguments - October 2010
      Excerpt: What is worse, multiplying without limit the opportunities for any event to happen in the context of a multiverse - where it is alleged that anything can spontaneously jump into existence without cause - produces a situation in which no absurdity is beyond the pale. For instance, we find multiverse cosmologists debating the "Boltzmann Brain" problem: In the most "reasonable" models for a multiverse, it is immeasurably more likely that our consciousness is associated with a brain that has spontaneously fluctuated into existence in the quantum vacuum than it is that we have parents and exist in an orderly universe with a 13.7 billion-year history. This is absurd. The multiverse hypothesis is therefore falsified because it renders false what we know to be true about ourselves. Clearly, embracing the multiverse idea entails a nihilistic irrationality that destroys the very possibility of science.
      http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/

      further note:

      Alan Turing & Kurt Godel - Incompleteness Theorem and Human Intuition - video (notes in video description)
      http://www.metacafe.com/watch/8516356/

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  3. In their value-laden world where they deny the existence of values, evolutionists insist they know the truth which is that, ultimately, we cannot know the truth.

    Actually, as far as I can detect, that's Professor Hunter's view about the origin of species. Namely, that we can't rule out any possibilities, (and so, we can't know the truth).

    But he's sure that evolution is not the truth.

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    1. "But he's sure that evolution is not the truth."

      Which is strange since I've repeatedly explained that evolution might be true.

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    2. Cornelius, I think that is the problem most evolutionists have with ID theory. They have no idea that we actually give the theory credit...but only the credit it deserves. But when you take away someones reason for living by their world view...any threat however small seems like a huge attack.

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    3. ForJah

      Cornelius, I think that is the problem most evolutionists have with ID theory. They have no idea that we actually give the theory credit...but only the credit it deserves.


      I'm curious ForJah - will you please list the things you think ToE got right, and why?

      Cornelius made a similar statement here but when asked to describe what he included in "evolution's "+" column" he cut and ran.

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    4. Hunter:

      Which is strange since I've repeatedly explained that evolution might be true.

      Awe, come on, Hunter. This does not follow. If a theory is falsified, it cannot possibly or logically be true. You have showed us many instances where evolution has clearly been falsified. So what gives?

      Hunter, you must stop straddling the fence and come out and say what you know is true. You must acknowledge that evolution is not just pseudoscience but pure unmitigated nonsense. You must categorically say that its proponents cling to it for religious reasons only.

      Otherwise, you're a coward. Sorry.

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    5. "Awe, come on, Hunter. This does not follow. If a theory is falsified, it cannot possibly or logically be true."

      It is difficult literally to falsify evolution because it is an umbrella theory and also is quite flexible. For example, some evolutionists say it is God's creation tool, and He guided and controlled every move. I realize this is very much a minority position. And since it introduces teleology it may not qualify as a legitimate version of evolution. But if it does, then you can see how difficult it is to falsify.

      Also, something can be astronomically improbable yet not literally falsified. If something has a 1 in 10^100 chance of being true, is it false? The fact is, evolutionists in their "honest moments," agree their theory requires unlikely events.

      So the bottom line is, according to today's science, evolution is highly unlikely. It is what it is, and once you go beyond that you just get into philosophical arguments.

      You say evolution is pure unmitigated nonsense. Yes, but I might have said that about quantum mechanics also. What clearly is pure unmitigated nonsense is the claim that evolution is a fact, or that it is likely, or that it is overwhelmingly supported by the evidence, or that there can be no shadow of a doubt about it, or, etc, etc. That sentiment is the consensus position amongst evolutionists, and it is pure unmitigated nonsense. It is also religious, hypocritical, harmful to science, and so forth.

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    6. Cornelius Hunter

      "Awe, come on, Hunter. This does not follow. If a theory is falsified, it cannot possibly or logically be true."

      It is difficult literally to falsify evolution because it is an umbrella theory and also is quite flexible.


      OK, so you admit evolution has not been falsified. Thanks.

      I assume then that you'll be posting no more OPs making the ridiculous "evolution has been falsified" claim, right?

      Delete
  4. Cornelius Hunter

    "But he's sure that evolution is not the truth."

    Which is strange since I've repeatedly explained that evolution might be true.


    Cornelius Hunter OP from just last month

    Evolution Falsified Yet Again: They Are So Complicated “That it’s Stunning”

    CH, how can something be falsified but still "might be true"?

    Can't wait to hear your tortured logic for this one.

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    1. IS this kid serious? You really need to read up on your philosophy of science. I think when Cornelius or any other ID advocate uses the word falsify...he isn't saying it's "impossible", he is simply saying that the theory no longer provides evidence of the best explanation.

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    2. As well, in order to falsify something within science that something would have to actually qualify as science in order to be falsified by science:

      Science and Pseudoscience – Imre Lakatos
      “nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific” – Imre Lakatos (November 9, 1922 – February 2, 1974) a philosopher of mathematics and science, , quote as stated in 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture

      Exposing Darwinism as a ‘degenerate science program' using Lakatos' criteria
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LpGd3smTV1RwmEXC25IAEKMjiypBl5VJq9ssfv4JgeM/edit

      Moreover despite the fact that neo-Darwinists refuse to expose their beloved theory to rigorous testing, the fact of the matter is that advances in quantum mechanics have falsified neo-Darwinism of its reductive materialistic foundation;

      Falsification Of Neo-Darwinism by Quantum Entanglement/Information
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p8AQgqFqiRQwyaF8t1_CKTPQ9duN8FHU9-pV4oBDOVs/edit

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    3. ForJah

      IS this kid serious? You really need to read up on your philosophy of science. I think when Cornelius or any other ID advocate uses the word falsify...he isn't saying it's "impossible", he is simply saying that the theory no longer provides evidence of the best explanation.


      Interesting. So ID has its own definition of "falsified" that's quite different from the one the rest of the world uses.

      What other definitions does ID have its own special meaning for? Where can I see this special "ID only" dictionary?

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    4. Thorton...this is the very reason you probably don't understand any objections to evolution. This isn't an ID only definition. This is the way in which casual adequacy for the historical sciences has always been, notice I say HISTORICAL sciences. Take the big bang/steady state theories of the universe. When scientists discovered the existence of microwave radiation...that falsified the steady state universe...but it didn't rule it out completely...it's still on the board as a scientific possibility. This is how HISTORICAL science works...you are far to rigid in the way you critic CH's articles. In the case of CH, the phrase that "Evolution provides the best explanation for the design and diversification of life"...is false. That doesn't make it impossible. The logic is so clear that I can't even believe we are having this discussion.

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    5. I agree with Thorton here. If evolution is falsified (and it is), Hunter cannot say that he believes that it might be true. Either his logic is flawed or his courage is lacking.

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    6. You both are looking at Cornelius's statements WAY to rigidly. These are expressions people... do you really need the "most likely-ies" and the "most probably-ies"? Because that type of language is missing in academic and formally persuasive works.Formal opinions never say..."in my opinion"..they say...It is. The reader is to understand it's the authors opinion not that what he says is undoubtedly true.

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    7. ForJah

      In the case of CH, the phrase that "Evolution provides the best explanation for the design and diversification of life"...is false. That doesn't make it impossible.


      It also doesn't make evolution falsified. Falsified has a specific meaning in scientific parlance, and it doesn't mean "personal opinion".

      The reader is to understand it's the authors opinion not that what he says is undoubtedly true.

      So now you agree that evolution has not been falsified, but that the claim is just CH's opinion. That's what we've been pointing out all along.

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    8. "IS this kid serious? You really need to read up on your philosophy of science. I think when Cornelius or any other ID advocate uses the word falsify...he isn't saying it's "impossible", he is simply saying that the theory no longer provides evidence of the best explanation."

      Right, but I would put it a bit differently. As I mentioned above, today's science indicates evolution to be highly unlikely. We can argue about how bad the theory is. And we can argue about what the word "falsify" means. If evolutionists want to take the word literally, such as in modus tollens, then of course evolution is not falsifiable.

      But the bottom line is this:

      -Today's science indicates evolution is highly unlikely, to put it mildly.

      -Evolutionists insist evolution is a fact, overwhelmingly supported by the evidence, and so there is no possibility of rational skepticism.

      -These high evolutionary truth claims, and evolutionary thought in general, is metaphysical. It is a trojan horse that has infected science and gone viral. It is hypocritical and harmful to science.

      -Evolution cannot stand the light of day, and so evolutionists will always seek to deflect attention to whatever distraction they can find.

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    9. Thorton exactly how does one go about falsifying a theory that has no falsification criteria that neo-Darwinists will accept? Even the falsification criteria laid down by Darwin himself is ignored by neo-Darwinists, as this following quote by Dr. Axe makes clear:

      "Charles Darwin said (paraphrase), 'If anyone could find anything that could not be had through a number of slight, successive, modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.' Well that condition has been met time and time again. Basically every gene, every protein fold. There is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in a gradualist way. It's a mirage. None of it happens that way. - Doug Axe PhD.

      Nothing In Molecular Biology Is Gradual - Doug Axe PhD. - video
      http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5347797/

      Dr. Douglas Axe further reflects on the surreal nature in which Darwinism has responded to 'falsifying' empirical evidence here:

      The Gorilla Who Broke the Tree - Doug Axe PhD. - March 2012
      Excerpt: Well, the recent publication of the gorilla genome sequence shows that the expected pattern just isn’t there. Instead of a nested hierarchy of similarities, we see something more like a mosaic. According to a recent report [1], “In 30% of the genome, gorilla is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other…”
      That’s sufficiently difficult to square with Darwin’s tree that it ought to bring the whole theory into question. And in an ideal world where Darwinism is examined the way scientific theories ought to be examined, I think it would. But in the real world things aren’t always so simple.
      http://www.biologicinstitute.org/post/19703401390/the-gorilla-who-broke-the-tree

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  5. Cornelius if you would but in and either tell me that is what you think or not, that might help Thorton here understand where you are coming from a bit better.

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    1. Good luck with that.

      For example, among a host of other questions, I've directly asked Cornelius exactly what kind of empiricist he is, repeatedly. He simply doesn't reply.

      In other words, his objections do not take the form of criticism with the goal to make progress. Rather, he's essentially claiming the biosphere was created in such a way that makes a theory of biological complexity impossible.

      However, this is like claiming atoms were created in such a way that atomic theory is impossible or that objects were created in a way that makes gravitational theory impossible.

      In other words, he's appealing to one of many general purpose means of denying anything.

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  6. CH: If human reasoning evolved and is flawed, then how can we know that evolution is a fact, much less any particular details of said evolutionary process that they think they understand via their “research”?

    This completely ignores entire epistemological philosophies, such as critical rationalism, in which flawed knowledge is the default state we operate under and incremental error correction is the primary means by which progress is made.

    To quote from the Wikipedia entry..

    Critical rationalism rejects the classical position that knowledge is justified true belief; it instead holds the exact opposite: That, in general, knowledge is unjustified untrue unbelief. It is unjustified because of the non-existence of good reasons. It is untrue, because it usually contains errors that sometimes remain unnoticed for hundreds of years. And it is not belief either, because scientific knowledge, or the knowledge needed to build a plane, is contained in no single person's mind. It is only available as the content of books.

    The most rapid way to make progress is to make errors as fast as we can, knowing full well that we make mistakes. In fact, it's though these mistakes that we get closer to truth.

    This is in contrast to pre-eliightment, authoritative conceptions of human knowledge, which assume we make progress because some supernatural being told us the answer or "That's just what some designer must have wanted". Neither of which actually explain how we make progress. Rather, it merely pushes the problem into some unexplainable realm.

    Having had brought them up on several times, it would seem that Cornelius is well aware of these epistemological philosophies, yet his arguments consistently and completely fail to acknowledge them.

    Again, it's as if he cannot recognize his authoritative conception of human knowledge is an idea that would be subject to criticism.

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    1. Scott said

      “ which flawed knowledge is the default state we operate"

      Which your definition of flawed? How do you know you start with flawed knowledge?

      "under and incremental error correction is the primary means by which progress is made." 

      What do you mean by correction? Progress means moving toward a goal, which is this goal?

      “The most rapid way to make progress is to make errors as fast as we can, knowing full well that we make mistakes. In fact, it's though these mistakes that we get closer to truth."

      What is truth? Exists the true? Can we know it? Is it objective absolute true or subjective and relative true?

      “Again, it's as if he cannot recognize his authoritative conception of human knowledge is an idea that would be subject to criticism.”

      Your conception of human knowlede is the most authoritative I read in this blog.

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    2. Blas,

      We've been over this several times. Apparently, you simply cannot recognize your conception of human knowledge as an idea that would be subject to criticism.

      Even though we know the earth is an sphere, It's still true that the earth appears *as if* it's flat from the surface of the earth. Even then, we it's not a perfect sphere, but an oblate sphere, etc.

      If you want more information, perform a Google search for "the logic of scientific discovery"

      Blas: Your conception of human knowlede is the most authoritative I read in this blog.

      No one has yet to formulate a "principle of induction" that actually works in practice. But, by all means, if you have a working explanation then please enlighten us. I'm all ears.

      Again, an authoritative conception of knowledge isn't based on explanations, but is dictated by an authority in the absence of an explanation of how that authority created the knowledge in the first place.

      And example is that God supposedly dictates knowledge on moral codes, cosmology, biological complexity, etc. He supposedly, "just was" compete with this knowledge.

      This is in contrast to knowledge that didn't exist before being created though a explanatory process of error correction. Not that our explanation of this process itself is incomplete, but becomes more accurate over time as we criticize it.

      Delete
  7. Scott said

    "We've been over this several times. Apparently, you simply cannot recognize your conception of human knowledge as an idea that would be subject to criticism."

    Scott before you arrive to the progress of the knowledge you hae to define:

    What is an idea and how an idea is "created".
    How you will criticize that idea.
    The knowledge "created" is subjective and relative or objective and absolute.

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    1. Blas: What is an idea and how an idea is "created".

      Ideas are conjectured explanations about what's happening in reality.

      Blas: How you will criticize that idea.

      Scientific theories exist as formalism, observations and interoperation as a coherent whole for the purpose of criticism. That is, observations are meaningless for the purpose of criticism on their own.

      Blas: The knowledge "created" is subjective and relative or objective and absolute.

      Your conception of human knowledge is parochial in that assumes objective means having been justified and subjective means being non-justiifed.

      So, you're really asking, is this knowledge authoritative or non-authoritative, but doing so under the guise of objective or subjective. You simply cannot recognize it as such.

      From the same Wikipedia entry..

      William Warren Bartley compared critical rationalism to the very general philosophical approach to knowledge which he called "justificationism". Most justificationists do not know that they are justificationists. Justificationism is what Popper called a "subjectivist" view of truth, in which the question of whether some statement is true, is confused with the question of whether it can be justified (established, proven, verified, warranted, made well-founded, made reliable, grounded, supported, legitimated, based on evidence) in some way.

      According to Bartley, some justificationists are positive about this mistake. They are naïve rationalists, and thinking that their knowledge can indeed be founded, in principle, it may be deemed certain to some degree, and rational.

      Other justificationists are negative about these mistakes. They are epistemological relativists, and think (rightly, according to the critical rationalist) that you cannot find knowledge, that there is no source of epistemological absolutism. But they conclude (wrongly, according to the critical rationalist) that there is therefore no rationality, and no objective distinction to be made between the true and the false.

      By dissolving justificationism itself, the critical rationalist regards knowledge and rationality, reason and science, as neither foundational nor infallible, but nevertheless does not think we must therefore all be relativists. Knowledge and truth still exist, just not in the way we thought.


      Unless you have a solution to the problem of indiction, we cannot extrapolate observations without first putting them into some explanatory framework. And explanatory frameworks are conjectured ideas.

      So, all we can do is create theories using conjecture, then weed out those with errors and work with what's left over.

      But this doesn't mean that we're left with nothing or that we do not make progress toward truth.

      Under Realism, every new observations but it tells us something about reality. You can think of it as a puzzle piece in an infinite puzzle. We might not know exactly where that piece goes, but this doesn't prevent us from making progress by connecting it to other pieces, ruling out where that piece doesn't fit, etc.

      Again, truth and knowledge exist, just not in the way that was previously thought before the enlightenment.

      But none of what I've written will make any difference if you cannot recognize that conception of human knowledge is an idea that would be subject to criticism.

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    2. Scott:

      “Ideas are conjectured explanations about what's happening in reality.”

      Ok, How are they created?

      “Blas: How you will criticize that idea.

      Scientific theories exist as formalism, observations and interoperation as a coherent whole for the purpose of criticism. That is, observations are meaningless for the purpose of criticism on their own."

      You are not explaining how you criticize an idea


      "So, you're really asking, is this knowledge authoritative or non-authoritative, but doing so under the guise of objective or subjective. You simply cannot recognize it as such. 

      “ reason and science, as neither foundational nor infallible, but nevertheless does not think we must therefore all be relativists.”"

      This is interesting. How reason and science can be neither foundational nor infallible but at the same time not reltive? How do you call something that is not objective nor subjective? How do you call something it is not absolute nor relative?

      “Knowledge and truth still exist, just not in the way we thought.”

      And this is an absolute true or a relative true? Or both at the sametime? I think that that sentence is a lie, do you have any argument ; other than say that I`m parochial, to show me the contrary?

      “Unless you have a solution to the problem of indiction, we cannot extrapolate observations without first putting them into some explanatory framework. And explanatory frameworks are conjectured ideas.
      So, all we can do is create theories using conjecture, then weed out those with errors and work with what's left over.”

      Ok agree induction leads always to a possibility.

      “But this doesn't mean that we're left with nothing or that we do not make progress toward truth.”

      Agree, but in order to make progress toward the truth we have to define the truth, because if we do not know what the truth is we cannot know if we are making progress toward them. Also the truth should be “stable” if the truth change over the time we cannot make any progress.

      “Under Realism, every new observations but it tells us something about reality. You can think of it as a puzzle piece in an infinite puzzle. We might not know exactly where that piece goes, but this doesn't prevent us from making progress by connecting it to other pieces, ruling out where that piece doesn't fit, etc.”

      This means you are saying what we call reality is the truth. That we can know the reality and the reality doesn`t change? 

      “But none of what I've written will make any difference if you cannot recognize that conception of human knowledge is an idea that would be subject to criticism.”

      I agree that human knowledge are ideas and that the ideas would subject of criticism. The problem is how we got the ideas and if we cannot know the truth there is no possibility of criticize. So we do not “create” knowledge by testing and criticizing but we shape our ideas according to the truth.

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    3. Blas: Ok, How are they created?

      Conjecture. We start out with background knowledge, which is familiar and uncontroversial. From there, we creatively conjecture an explanation about what's actually happing in reality that would result in the phenomena in question.

      Scott: Scientific theories exist as formalism, observations and interoperation as a coherent whole for the purpose of criticism. That is, observations are meaningless for the purpose of criticism on their own."

      Blas: You are not explaining how you criticize an idea

      Again, Scientific theories exist as formalisms, observations and interpretations. This represents a coherent whole for the purpose of criticism.

      Specifically, we test a theory for internal consistency. If it's self-contradictory, then we need not bother making any observations. We also take all aspects of theory (formalism, observations and interoperation) seriously, in that we assume they are all true, in reality, for the purpose of criticism. And we do the same for the rest of all of our current, best explanations. This represents a coherent whole from which we test if observations conform to the theory.

      We assume the theory is true, for the purpose of criticism, in that we use it as the framework by which we extrapolate observations. In the absence of a framework, observations tell us nothing in particular.

      Nor would it make sense to use some other framework to extrapolate observations, as that separates the observations from the theories formalism and interpretation. At best, you'd end up testing with some theory other than the one you're supposedly criticizing. Worst case, you'd end up with an incoherent mishmash, which isn't suitable for criticism.

      For example, imagine someone conjectured that an internal combustion engine (ICE) could not exceed 95% efficiency because the spark plug is directly attached to the crankshaft. Before we even need to fire up an engine for testing it's efficiency, we can note that diesel engines, which are also ICEs, do not have spark plugs. And in those ICEs that that do, the spark plug is not directly connected to the crankshaft.

      So, while it might be true that, in reality, an ICE cannot exceed 95% efficiency, we shouldn't conclude this is the case based on this theory because it's internally inconstant.

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  8. Blas: This is interesting. How reason and science can be neither foundational nor infallible but at the same time not reltive? How do you call something that is not objective nor subjective? How do you call something it is not absolute nor relative?

    You still appear to be confused, as no one suggested reason or science is relative, or that idealism is true, in that there is no one specific reality out there which is objectively true. Instead, reason and science are not foundational, in that they do not play the role you seem to think it does.

    This is illustrated above, in that justification doesn't play a role in criticism.

    Wiki quote: “Knowledge and truth still exist, just not in the way we thought.”

    Blas: And this is an absolute true or a relative true? Or both at the sametime? I think that that sentence is a lie, do you have any argument ; other than say that I`m parochial, to show me the contrary?

    Again, apparently you cannot recognize your authoritative conception of human knowledge as an idea since you keep presetting the same false dilemma or suggesting i'm violating the law of non-contradiction.

    I've already provided examples in my previous comment.

    Even though we know the earth is an sphere, It's still true that the earth appears *as if* it's flat from the surface of the earth. Even then, it's not a perfect sphere, but an oblate sphere, etc.

    We expect our theories to always contain errors because we have no expiation as to how we know otherwise. The question is exactly where and to what degree these errors occur. So, objective truth exists - but theories can never completely reach it. They can only get closer as more and more errors are discarded.

    This is the opposite of the idea of positively proving something is objectively true.

    Blas: Ok agree induction leads always to a possibility.

    Except, that lets induction off far to easy. Before one could falsely extrapolate observations one must still put them into an explanatory framework.

    For example, before Russell's anthropomorphized chickens could incorrectly conclude the farmer would keep feeding them in the future, merely since he had done so every day since they were born, they had to conjecture some other theory, such as the farmer had benevolent feelings towards chickens.

    So, observations are meaningless, in the sense you're referring to, unless they are first put into an explanatory framework.

    Blas: Agree, but in order to make progress toward the truth we have to define the truth, because if we do not know what the truth is we cannot know if we are making progress toward them

    You just equivocated on the term truth: in the former you referred to a definition of truth, then in the latter you referred to possessing the knowledge of what is true, so we can know if we're getting closer to it. These are two different things.

    Blas: Also the truth should be “stable” if the truth change over the time we cannot make any progress.

    Why should this be the case? Please be specific.

    Blas: This means you are saying what we call reality is the truth.

    Yes.

    Blas: That we can know the reality and the reality doesn`t change?

    The question is how can we know reality, and to what degree? No one will ever "touch" a law of physics, except through their minds. And, again, why do you think reality doesn't change? You seem to be making some sort of assumption here based on justificationism.

    Blas: The problem is how we got the ideas and if we cannot know the truth there is no possibility of criticize. So we do not “create” knowledge by testing and criticizing but we shape our ideas according to the truth.

    Are you saying that you *do* have a solution to the problem of induction after all? If not, then how can we "shape our ideas according to the truth"?

    In other words, you have it backwards. Theories are tested by observations, not derived from them.

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  9. Scott said:“ We start out with background knowledge”

    My question was how was created this starting background knowledge? And as you use to say “be specific”

    Scott said: “Specifically, we test a theory for internal consistency. If it's self-contradictory, then we need not bother making any observations.”

    So the process of criticize and hypothesys start with a knowledge we alrady have and we call logic. Logic is absolute? How we reach the knowledge we call logic without logic in order to criticize it?

    Scott said“We also take all aspects of theory (formalism, observations and interoperation) seriously, in that we assume they are all true, in reality, for the purpose of criticism. And we do the same for the rest of all of our current, best explanations. This represents a coherent whole from which we test if observations conform to the theory.”

    Second step of the process of criticize and hypothesys is confront it with observations.

    Scott said “We assume the theory is true, for the purpose of criticism, in that we use it as the framework by which we extrapolate observations. In the absence of a framework, observations tell us nothing in particular.”

    Agree if by framework you do not understand a formal hypothesis about the observation. Humans just making observation of the power of the wind made mills and boats without none hypothesis that how and why they work.

    Scott said “You still appear to be confused,”
    May be you are not clear enough.

    Scott said “ as no one suggested reason or science is relative, or that idealism is true, in that there is no one specific reality out there which is objectively true.”

    Why then you are assuming that for the process of criticize the ideas? Is reality subjective then? Or Do you have another category for it?

    Scott said “This is illustrated above, in that justification doesn't play a role in criticism. 
    Wiki quote: “Knowledge and truth still exist, just not in the way we thought.””

    This is your immagination.

    Scott said “Again, apparently you cannot recognize your authoritative conception of human knowledge as an idea since you keep presetting the same false dilemma or suggesting i'm violating the law of non-contradiction.”

    Off course you are, unless you can define how something could be not objective nor subjective.

    Scott said“We expect our theories to always contain errors because we have no expiation as to how we know otherwise. The question is exactly where and to what degree these errors occur.”
    “So, objective truth exists - but theories can never completely reach it. They can only get closer as more and more errors are discarded.”

    But two paragraphs before you said: “in that there is no one specific reality out there which is objectively true.”
    Just if you changed your mind, how do you know objective truth exists?

    Scott said: “This is the opposite of the idea of positively proving something is objectively true.”

    So every truth is relative to our starting knowledge, logic and framework of explanation.

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    Replies
    1. Scott said “So, observations are meaningless, in the sense you're referring to, unless they are first put into an explanatory framework.

      Ok agree, but the explanatory framework is nothing more than knowledge, then you have the conundrum to give meaning to observation you need knowledge, and in order to have knowledge you have to give meaning to observations.

      "Blas: Also the truth should be “stable” if the truth change over the time we cannot make any progress.

      Scott said: Why should this be the case? Please be specific." 

      Reality should “work” always in the same way because if today observation were different in the past or in the future we will got differents hypothesis wrong or right at differents times.

      Scott said:“Blas: This means you are saying what we call reality is the truth. 

      Yes”

      Are you assuming it or it is objectively true?

      Scott said:
      “Are you saying that you *do* have a solution to the problem of induction after all? If not, then how can we "shape our ideas according to the truth"?”

      When you test your hypothesis for internal consistency, that means your applying the logic to the hypothesys you are shaping your ideas according the true of logic. The same when you test your hypothesys you shape your ideas against the true of the reality.

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