When you don’t collect your observations in a systematic way, with appropriate controls, with the goals of supporting or refuting a hypothesis, it isn’t considered empirical evidence. It’s considered anecdotes. That would be the difference between real science and pseudoscience.
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You are still conflating the entire crime solving process with “science.”
I’m not arguing about science, I’m arguing about empiricism. Science uses the latter, but the latter doesn’t need science.
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I never said that Maggie’s inferences were scientific, but the evidence from which we inferred meaning was indeed empirical.
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I think the conflation occurred when it was presumed that empirical implied scientific.
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I do not support any of this “properly interpreted” nonsense. That is rewriting the Bible. The Bible is a source of subjective truth and any interpreting going on (which is unavoidable) is between you and God.
All truth is not God’s truth. That is no more correct than the idea that God created all things. People create things too and as a result they create truths about the things they create as well.
Science is a source of objective truth when it consists of written procedures which anyone can follow to get the same results no matter what they want or believe.
The distinction between general and special revelation are the antiquated notions of theologians from some time ago and the claims about these categories by these theologians have no authority over Christianity. Sola Scriptura!
Correct! That is the way it should be. The results of written procedures giving the same results no matter what you want or believe provides a reasonable expectation that others should agree. Using the Bible or anything else to contradict such findings simply isn’t rational.
No. Scripture is not relevant to the findings of science. The only question is whether you can find meaning in scripture consistent with the findings of science or you need to throw the book in the garbage.
Sure. The situation is when the scientific consensus ceases to follow the scientific method and becomes politicized or theological. I am not going to accept ID whether the consensus of the “scientific community” agrees with it or not.
It defines the Christian religion. That is the only authority it has.
True… but there was no such consensus and there was nothing objective about it. I was simply a popular opinion and presumption only.
How is Jesus’ resurrection empirical data?
You agree with Christy then.
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Maggie’s testimony is indeed a record of empirical data, but not in the way you mean. Neither is your meaning of a pretty good record of God’s providential M.O. empirical. Although it is the other way of course. And the other, both unintended. It’s the appearance of design in the sense of intervention when there is none at all above grounding, instantiating autonomy.
Finally someone showing that there is more than one definition of “empirical.” The last of these is closer to the meaning connected with modern science while the first two are more connected to empiricism which involves an antiquated understanding of science which misses the mark by quite a bit. We can no longer support the notion that science consists of just experience and observation. That by itself would admit a ton of pseudo-scientific fads of every sort.
This is the difference right here. Just observation and experience is not enough (let alone the testimony of witnesses). The flaws have to do whether the observations provide an adequate test of the hypothesis and thereby provides a means of demonstrating the accepted results.
Did they observe the results of this event empirically?
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I would hold it is still empirical evidence, just that the evidence does not always support the conclusion derived. And that is where science shines, in that it looks at the data critically to determine how likely something is to have happened that way, so we are in full agreement there.
In common usage in medicine, the word empirical is used most often a bit differently. We often say something like," We treated the UTI "empirically " meaning we had no evidence of the specific infectious organism, but chose the antibiotic based on our best guess. So while empirical treatment is based on past empirical evidence, hopefully, it is a step removed from direct evidence and has an element of more uncertainty.
Their observations were not empirical, scientific, evidence of a resurrection. Are you claiming they were? Are you really trying to make the argument I outlined above?
empirical
adjective
em·pir·i·cal | \ im-ˈpir-i-kəl
1 : originating in or based on observation or experience // empirical data
2 : relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory // an empirical basis for the theory
3 : capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment // empirical laws
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Dictionary definitions only get you so far. I am asking you about what you meant.
Do you believe the Bible contains empirical scientific data?
I’m afraid I’m having trouble understanding what you mean if you’re going to use words entirely contrary to their dictionary definition. Saying that an observation is not empirical is quite the oxymoron, and I am struggling to understand what you can possibly mean by that.
Did you perhaps mean to say, regarding the earliest witnesses to the resurrection, that their observations, while empirical, were not scientific?
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I am saying there is a difference between “an empirical observation” and “empirical scientific data.” Do you disagree?
I said that Scripture could not inform science by offering competing facts about natural reality. It doesn’t answer scientific questions with empirical data.
You said the Bible does contain empirical data, because people observed the resurrected Jesus with their senses.
I do not think that is an example of answering a scientific question with empirical data, so I still do not think that the Bible can “correct” science. Science corrects science. Christians guided by the Holy Spirit correct Bible interpretations. Bible interpretations inform how we understand and apply the interpretations of the natural world through science. Science informs how we understand and apply the interpretations of divine revelation through Scripture interpretations. They are different lenses through which we look at a big picture of reality. They are not competing methods for creating the picture or the reality itself.
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Also, empirical observation is not oxymoronic, because not all observations are empirical. Observations can be intuitive and subjective. Psychologists, for example, make observations and draw inferences about clients that are not objective, empirical observations all the time. Art is generally based on observations of human nature and society, but those observations are not 100% empirical just because they are observations.
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So, does mankind’s “empirical scientific data” tell us if there was a flood during Noah’s time. Not the size of it, but just whether there was a large, very deep flood (deep enough to cover the tallest mountains) in the Middle East about 4000 or so years ago?
You are still conflating empirical with scientific. The former does not necessarily imply the latter. @Daniel_Fisher is correct in that the observations after the resurrection were indeed empirical, but they were not scientific, just as Maggie’s observations were empirical and objective, but not scientific. The meaning(s) inferred is another question.
The point is, truth can be inferred from empirical observations without it being scientific truth, and that science is not the sole source of truth.
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