T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
41
@SkovandOfMitaze also pointed out that the consensus is built on millions of peer reviewed scientific papers which contain the evidence that supports the consensus view. The consensus view is just a summary of those millions of pieces of evidence.
How does that compare to YEC? They don’t submit their ideas to peer review. They don’t address the evidence in those papers. YEC’s invent extra-biblical miracles to justify their rejection of that evidence (e.g. accelerated nuclear decay). YEC’s also misrepresent the evidence on a continual basis.
A scientific consensus isn’t just a shared opinion or a shared belief. A scientific consensus is the result of many, many pieces of evidence that have been critically analyzed through the scientific method and by criticism from other scientists. It passes those tests.
That is both true and completely irrelevant. You elsewhere say, “Truth is not determined by consensus though. Data and valid arguments determine truth.” Drawing conclusions about the physical world from data also requires use of formal logical fallacies; you cannot learn anything about nature purely by formal logic. So why even raise the issue?
When was the last time a mature, well-supported scientific theory(*) turned out to be completely wrong?
(*) I prefer to avoid ‘paradigm’ because it means too many different things.
Ummm … Yes! And not just any ‘other’ people, but a vast majority of people who have built up a vast infrastructure of successful industries dependent on such basic facts as that. What industry has resulted from any flat earth paradigm apart from the quackery-influencer industry online? The tiny set of people who believe such nonsense are those who specialize in ignoring the mountains of evidence, whereas all the rest (the ones I tend to believe) specialize in paying attention to the mountains of evidence and adjusting their views to fit reality. Sure - it’s not proof of truth, but as others have already pointed out here, raising the spectre of “logical proof” is just a smokescreen to hide weak and unsupported thought.
[But it isn’t the only reason I believe the earth is round - I also believe it because it makes sense. – again - not proof, but it does count for a lot. And flat earthism in contrast manages to make no sense at all of much anything real.]
Which means truth about nature is not determined. How is that fuzzy thinking?
That does not follow. I trust the evidence, but that evidence is produced by other people. I believe NASA photographs are not Photoshop.
You, I, and everybody else relies on evidence produced by other people. Most people have not personally verified the existence of Cicero, Antarctica, neurons, the battle of Waterloo, giant squids, quarks, Beethoven, ect, nor do they need to.
Likely, but that would mean I was an average dude living in a Pre-Greek culture. Once somebody came up with a good argument for the globe, I would have probably been convinced along with the others.
Of course. But you have not personally produced or handled the data. To the extent you use it, you are trusting others for its existence and validity. Data does not exist in a vacuum. If it is not valid, it does not determine truth. Validating data is part of consensus building and community acceptance is part of the process.
You seen to be taking my post as elevating consensus to truth; what I said is…
Seriously? It may be possible to continue to cut atoms and they keep their character? I do not care about pure skepticism or being tentative about everything. Others may, I do not care about that either. With that, I am done, because this seems to be splitting hairs.
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T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
45
Recently, there was the “Final Experiment” where people went to Antarctica to see if the Sun stays above the horizon for 24 hours and moves about in circle around the observers. It included 3 flat earthers to keep things fair. Unsurprisingly, the Sun did just what we would expect on a globe earth, but completely contrary to flat earth models. Hundreds of similar tests can be done.
Of course, the flat earth community is coming up with any number of crazy explanations to make the evidence go away, not dissimilar to what we see happen in the YEC community.
It doesn’t need to compare to YEC. That comparison has no bearing on the truthfulness of the other claim and is irrelevant.
They tend to complain their ideas are not accepted by peer review because they are not mainstream. While their science might be bad, it is disingenuous to criticize YECs for not publishing in mainline peer-reviewed journals when they are not allowed to.
The evidence is all that matters and no one is obligated to blindly accept any consensus by anyone – especially not because you find it true.
Is there something wrong with wondering if decay rates were different in the past or if the speed of light might have changed? I am not agreeing with either of these notions, but they seem like valid questions that can be asked. Unless science is so bloated it isn’t in the business of asking questions anymore. I think our nuclear models are very good but the very nature of science tells us to never stop questioning or testing them.
The inductive logic employed by science may be considered as using formal logical fallacies. Or it may just be considered starting with certain boundary conditions and rules and constructing models based off them with it being known up front that if its initial premises are off, the model cannot be trusted. I would include uniformitarianism and cause and effect in this.
Isn’t that the topic of the thread? Why are two Harvard grads YECs? I extended Knox’s comments. Titles don’t determine truth. Neither does consensus. Truth isn’t a popularity contest.
How does one exhaustively know how many mature, well-supported scientific theories might actually be or are wrong? Just because the scientific community cannot agree on one or more fitting the bill in recent times, you assume they could not actually be wrong? A person who cannot be convicted of a crime is not necessarily innocent. An absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence. This is just compounding fallacies and fuzzy thinking. The evidence and arguments are what matter. \
One, That is sad.
Two, these responses are contradictory. There are a ton of reasons/arguments/observations for rejecting a flat earth. They form the crux of the argument. If more people thought the earth was flat, that would not invalidate the arguments against it, or the videos of earth from space. The earth wasn’t flat a thousand years ago because most educated people thought it was. If I were trying to convince someone the earth was not flat, “Most smart people who study the issue do not think it is flat” would not be the approach I would take either.
You know what makes sense to YECs, idiots per one user in this thread (maybe more?): The Bible is God’s word and accurately describes reality. What else make sense? That their trusted family members, elders, pastors, neighbors, Church goers and authorities are correct in that the Bible should be accepted over secular modes of knowledge. That Jesus, their Lord and savior treated Scripture as God’s word and it is as trustworthy as He is.
In the grand scheme of things, even though intellectually correct, you are just touting scientific consensus. The YECs are touting a different consensus based on their life experience. Much of the content of this discussion lacks charity and is fueled by intellectual hubris. Primates thinking they have it all figured out and that their method and thought is unassailable. Personally, I choose not to sit in either box, nor do I feel the need to form an opinion on everything or accept consensus without good reason. I’d rather abstain and say I do not know and take a leap of faith when prudent in life.
Yes, we all rely on human testimony and observation. We have to accept the scientific paper is reporting results correctly and not lying or making mistakes. This does not mean we just axiomatically accept things because more people do than not. No one is denying the role or necessity of testimony. Science excels because it can be repeated and tested all over the world, so one does not have to rely on eyewitness recollections of unrepeatable events or the data of once scientist. Universities and labs all over the world can repeat classic and new experiments.
Splitting hairs as I was not excluding subatomic particles from the term “matter” thus your “keep their character” was not in my mind. And while I think our current “fuzzy-cloud model,” (as opposed to the replaced Bohr, plum-pudding and billiard ball models we routinely teach to our grade school students) is very good, the history of the atom cautions me on thinking we are done or that there cannot be a major paradigm shift in how we understand things in some ways. A good scientific model works, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is some innate truth or a completely accurate description of reality. Science also appears to tends to progress (I base this on technological advances which are virtually impossible to deny for anyone) but that doesn’t mean it can’t ever move backwards.
Attempts to treat scientific induction as forms of deductive reasoning have uniformly failed, as far as I know. Actual scientific reasoning does not produce certain truth.
The latter is the subject of the thread. I don’t think your statements about the fallibility of scientific consensuses provides any answer to the question at hand.
Nothing determines truth with certainty. A scientific consensus, however, is far more likely to be a good model of the truth than a fringe position is. Your binary thinking is ignoring that.
I’m not sure whom you’re arguing with, but it’s not me. Where have I suggested that scientific consensus can’t be wrong? What I do claim is that the scientific consensus is much more likely to be a good approximation to reality than a view that explicitly rejects that consensus. You’re arguing against a position that no one is defending.
I cannot grasp your position here. Surely you know that evidence and arguments can also be wrong, don’t you? So why are they the things that matter, rather than the conclusions of all those who have spent their lives studying that evidence and those arguments?
And YECs can equally tout a different set of evidence and arguments based on their experience to counter the evidence and arguments of science. So I’m still at a loss as to why you think evidence is somehow superior to the conclusions formed from looking at that evidence, which is what the scientific consensus is (despite your repeated efforts to characterize it as simply ‘what more people think’).
Even back around 1990 my physics prof never used the word “is”, only “behaves like”. If pressed to say what light is, he would respond that it seems to be “wavicles”.
I believe the Earth is round because I have experienced several things that could only happen on a globe.
And not a high-ranking Egyptian priest.
I can’t remember the date, but some pharaoh sent a fleet down along the east side of Africa to see how far it extended. The crew noticed that as they went south, the sun moved until at noon it was straight up, not to the south, and then as they continued the sun was actually north of them. As far as I can find, this knowledge was kept quiet by some of the priesthood, so the people probably didn’t know about it.
Well - yeah. A ton of other reasons indeed - you are correct. But a consensus of a lot of observant people and all the understandings that have been successfully built around a fact is definitely a legitimate part of that ‘ton’. Yes - I can make observations of my own regarding this specific issue (flat earth) that also satisfy me, despite my not having traveled all the way around the world myself. But the point is, there are a great many other issues where I do not have the personal experience / expertise necessary to make such observations for myself; like issues from genetics and nested hierarchies and such. So I am dependent on the interpretations of that from people who can understand and take all that evidence into account. And guess what? I still believe them! Why? Because they have demonstrated all those same sorts of things that I mentioned that you find “so sad”! You may find it insufficient, but if I were to withhold any conclusion just because I cannot personally take the time and expense (and likely at this point in my life don’t even have the capability any more) to rise to their level of expertise in all these other subjects) then I would become one of these willfully ignorant persons who is vulnerable to all such conspiracy stuff peddled by YECers and their intellectual kin. I would be peddling the false “all opinions are equal” nonsense (while really not even succeeding in meaning even just that, because I would be pretending I had no bias when I really did … in fact I would be at the mercy of my own unacknowledged biases more than just about everybody else!) No. I don’t want to be like that. Instead, I want to stand on the shoulders of giants to see what they can show me. I don’t want to limit myself to whatever tiny morsels of knowledge that are within my own personal direct acquisition and verification. I have learned and will continue to learn from others, thank you very much. And in doing so, my part in that is to - yes - do what I can personally - but mostly to exercise discernment on which others are worth listening to, and which others are peddling nonsense because they refuse to learn from the vast collection and consensus of human experience - especially from science.
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T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
51
YEC’s are allowed to submit papers. The problem is that they can’t provide evidence for their claims which is why they will fail peer review.
To echo @glipsnort, evidence by itself says nothing. Hypothesis testing, data analysis, and conclusions are just as important. It’s called science, not observation.