Refutting Atehist Extraordinary Claims Argument (ECREE)

Carl Sagan



Atheists are fond of dismissing Atheist Watch (My "other" blog) as my own private hate fest. But the truth is I've been using it to construct a theory of atheist psychology. The major conclusion I've reached so far is that there is a calculated ideology that someone constructed (not to sound so mysterious--by "someone" I don't mean atheists "men in black" just the normal evolution of argument and the contributors to the same). One of the standard leavers of that ideological/propagandist approaches used in their movement is development of a standard for proof which enables them to constantly raise the bar so no amount of evidence or reasoning can ever count against their position. It's a rhetorical device not a rule of logic!


Carl Sagan made this statement popular in its current form, it was originally used by Hume, Laplace and other early theorists, but atheists have sense taken it as a major slogan for their decision-making paradigm.


Marcelo Truzzi tells us:

In his famous 1748 essay Of Miracles, the great skeptic David Hume asserted that "A wise man...proportions his belief to the evidence,"and he said of testimony for extraordinary claims that "the evidence, resulting from the testimony, admits of a diminution, greater or less, in proportion as the fact is more unusual." A similar statement was made by Laplace, and many other later writers. I turned it into the now popular phrase "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" (which Carl Sagan popularized into what is almost the war cry of some scoffers).

This slogan allows them to raise the bar for any Christian claim, while lowering it for their own purposes. Ed J. Gracely explains the basic logic of the bromide.

First, it is important to understand that the strength of a conclusion is a function both of the quality of the evidence provided in its support and the a priori probability of the claim being supported. Thus there can never be a single standard of "acceptable evidence" that will suffice to render every claim equally plausible. Suppose, for example, that a reasonably reliable source tells me (a) that President Clinton has vetoed legislation that places restrictions on trade with China and (b) that Newt Gingrich has switched to the Democratic party. Most people would be much more confident of the truth of the first report than of the second, even though the source is identical. The difference lies in the a priori plausibility of the claims.


A more precise formulation requires us to cast the a priori probability of a claim into the form of "odds" in its favor. A proposition with 90% probability of being true has 90 chances of being true for every 10 of being false. Thus the odds are 90 to 10, which reduces to 9 to 1. A proposition with 20% probability of being true has 20 chances of being true for 80 of being false. The odds (in its favor) are 20 to 80 or 0.25 to 1. It is more natural to translate the latter case into odds of 4 to 1 against the proposition, but the calculations require us to work with odds "in favor of" a proposition, even if they are fractional. Pieces of evidence alter the odds in favor of a proposition by a multiplicative factor in proportion to the quality of the evidence.

While it is clear that not all evidence weighs the same, some evidence is better than other evidence, nothing in this explanation indicates why evidence must be stronger for “extraordinary claims” than for “normal claims.” Assuming we can even indicate what “extraordinary evidence” is, what makes it more proven than “ordinary” evidence? The statement above merely indicates that probability is higher for a proposition backed by more direct evidence, nothing more. The rationale says that the least likely proposition is less probable, then the assertion that the evidence must be more “extraordinary” (whatever that means) rather than just accurate or valid or to the point is not demonstrated. Most assumptions about what makes evidence “extraordinary” or “ordinary,” or a proposition likely or unlikely is going to be largely a matter of prejudice. Consider the following statement, also by Gracely:

The principle is clear; the difficulty lies in the application. How likely, for example, is it that homeopathy or therapeutic touch really work? Proponents argue that we need to open our minds to new possibilities and grant these systems a fairly high a priori probability (say, 50-50 odds). Then, even modest-quality evidence would make the claims quite probably true. Skeptics argue that these systems violate known laws of physics and their validity should therefore be considered remotely improbable.

Who decides how likely it is that homeopathy is valid or invalid medicine? One would need a statical average for cure rates to compare with controlled group using orthodox practices to see this. He admits that “modest quality” evidence would be proof if it is granted a high probability. Without the proper studies why not so grant? What if one has found such treatments effective already in one’s own life? This is nothing more than prejudice to judge something improbable on the basis of guesswork and matters of taste. No that does not mean that believe those forms of healing. Why shouldn’t a standard of evidence adequate for proof of the issue under consideration, be the issue? I have so far been unable to find an atheist who can tell me what extraordinary God evidence is. I’ve seen attempts on message boards, where they argue absurdities like “why can’t God make all the stars spell out the phrase “burn pain is the worst pain, Jesus is Lord, convert now.” Or God could appear at the UN and hold a press conference. I have yet to see an atheist give me a valid option for “extraordinary evidence.” More importantly, we are talking about God, not about finding Bigfoot. God is off scale for empirical investigation. How can the basis of reality be studied as though just another “thing” in creation? What could be used as a basis of comparison? How could one ever establish a base line comparison to determine probability of God? Dawkins tries it but he merely assumes God would be on a par with any other physical object. What basis is used to establish the probability of something that is said to be beyond our understanding?

Gracely argues:

An alternative I have heard suggested is to drop the extraordinary proof argument and instead to hold paranormal and alternative medicine claims strictly to the ordinary requirements of replicability and good research. This approach sounds sensible but it has a serious flaw. Skeptics are not willing to accept the plausibility of most paranormal claims unless the evidence is extremely strong. We risk being perceived (correctly) as disingenuous if we call for solid quality research, then revert to the extraordinary claims argument should it in fact appear.(Ibid)

Correction, most skeptics are never willing to grant anything to para normal claims regardless of the evidence, this is obvious to anyone who has ever argued with atheists on message boards. I have 200 studies with replicablity, double blind, proved comparison methods, published in scholarly journals, peer reviewed and indexed, and the atheists on CARM treat them like comic books. The only reason they nit pick to death (ploys such as once attacking the bibliography becuase it had a source they didn't like rather than looking at the studies themselves) is becasue the studies contradict their world view.

This standard (normal scientific protocols) is the one I have been proposing for years. The term he doesn’t use, the proper term for “ordinary” level of proof would be a “prima facie case.” He may have a point if we are talking about acupuncture or UFOs but the flaw he sees in it is attitudinal, not logical or methodological. The attitude of skeptics is out of line anyway. Atheists are not willing to accept any level of evidence. The experience studies are fine studies, they are scientific and a huge body of work backs them up. For all practical purposes, they are “extraordinary evidence.” Let us not forget there is no set standard any skeptic can offer to define that term. Skeptics are quick to brush aside the experience studies as “subjective” without reading the studies or thinking about the arguments. They never define what “extraordinary” evidence would be. Gracely observes that skeptical attitudes are similar even in other areas:

In some areas of paranormal investigation, such as extrasensory perception (ESP), the research is already often better done than much orthodox scientific research, with controls and double-checks most scientists would regard as overkill. Skeptics mostly still feel that the intrinsic implausibility is so great that nothing short of airtight and well-repeated research would be sufficient to support ESP. Little or none of the existing research rises to that level, so we remain skeptical. (Some recent work has been of high quality, see Ray Hyman's article, "The Evidence for Psychic Functioning: Claims vs. Reality", in the March/April 1996 Skeptical Inquirer, pp 24-26.) Had skeptics said some 40 years ago that all we wanted was reasonable quality replicated research, we might now be having to eat our words.

Skeptics are never satisfied. I have seen this problem over and over again. When their demands for evidence are met, they just raise the bar again and again. The tyranny of “extraordinary evidence” so long as one never defines it, allows for this sort of abuse all the time. More importantly, why should God be subjected to the same standards of proof as empirical objects? Here the skeptic is just in the position of arguing “God is improbable because I don’t believe in him.” Truzzi documents the “catch 22” designed into the extraordinary proof standard:

But it is important to remember that the proponent of the paranormal has an uphill battle from the start. The chips are stacked against him, so his assault is not so threatening to the fabric of science as scoffers often characterize it. In a sense, conservative science has "the law" on its side.

In law, we find three varieties in the weight of burden of proof:

1. proof by preponderance of evidence,

2. clear and convincing proof, and, in criminal law,

3. proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

In conventional science, we usually use (1), but when dealing with extraordinary claims, critics often seem to demand (3) since they demand all alternative explanations must be eliminated before the maverick claim is acceptable. This demand sometimes becomes unreasonable and may even make the scoffer's position unfalsifiable. Since the anomaly proponent is already saddled with a presumption of "guilt," it would seem to me that (2), clear and convincing proof, might be the best standard, though proponents may reasonably wonder why standard (1) should always be denied them.(Ibid)

The ploy just described is SOP for atheists on message boards. Since every alternative, however unlikely, must be exhausted first, they will put a 0.2% probability claim over a 50-50 claim any time just because the alternatives must be exhausted and that means nothing ever has to be granted to belief. In this way all other forms of knowledge bu the pseudo science of the atheist ideology is rejected, thus the ideology of the atheist and its propaganda protocols become like a template.This serves to reinforce the ideology because all anyone need do is compare the God argument to the template, or course it wont fit, it is then judged "unscientific" (becasue the template has come to replace real scientific procedure in the mind of the atheist) and thus all belief is always wrong!

But we must also keep in mind that God is not “paranormal.” Truzzi and Gracely are speaking in general of any sort of “paranormal” claim, including the claims of alternative medicine. God is not paranormal, but is status quo, normative for human belief. Nor is God a scientific question. It is absurd to expect us to limit evidence to only the scientific when the question about belief is epistemological. More on this aspect of belief and it is import for evidential standards below. But this does raise a further question about the extraordinary evidential standard:

In addition to defining the term “extraordinary evidence” there is also a need to define the term “extraordinary claim.” Why is God an extraordinary claim? Here the atheist is truly in the position of arguing “God is improbable because I don’t believe in him.” Atheists make up 3% of the world’s population at best. The overwhelming majorities of people alive today, or who have ever lived, believe in some form of God. Our brains are hard wired to have thoughts of God. Our physical and mental health work better when we believe in God (as will be seen in latter chapters). Obviously we are fit for belief, why would belief be extraordinary? Why should we allow the minor little 3% minority to define what is normative for humanity? Belief in God is far more than just the average belief; it is normative as a standard of human understanding. It forms the basis of our psyches, it forms the basis of our legal system; it is the chief metaphor regulating meaning and morality. Belief in God illustrates all the aspects of a prima facie case. This is at least so for RE. Marcelo Truzzi makes the same point:

The central problem however lies in the fact that "extraordinary" must be relative to some things "ordinary." and as our theories change, what was once extraordinary may become ordinary (best seen in now accepted quantum effects that earlier were viewed as "impossible"). Many now extraordinary claims may become more acceptable not when they are replicated but when theoretical contexts change to make them more welcome.(Ibid)

Of course what he's actually talking about is Thomas Kuhn's paradigm shift. Trussi doesn't say it but what he described is basically that, the way anomalies are absorbed into the paradigm and dismissed as unimportant until there are too many and they are too problematic, the paradigm shifts under it's own weight and the new paradigm is taken in; the anomalies under the old become the "facts" under the new. Kuhn says that a paradigm is defended just like a political regime. When it first starts to show signs of are its followers do damage control just like the Nixon White house under Watergate or the Reagan White house under Iran/contra gate, or Bush under the lies about WMD. In a sense a paradigm in scinece is propped up by an ideology that is driven by that paradigm. In quasi scientific mimicry of atheism which flatters itself as scientific, the paradigm of "physicalism" is surrounded by the ideology of atheists that protects it. ECREE is just a propaganda device that enables the ideology to knock off any counter claims.

Skeptics have argued that religious experience is not regular or consistent because such experiences are all different. Not only do you have so many different religions, but also even from mystic to mystic things differ. Over the years as one develops a disciplined life of prayer, one does encounter growing diversity and newness, but a certain sense of the familiar as well. Experiences become regular and consistent in that the presence of God is usually found in prayer, the sense of the presence is always the of the same quality (although varying intensity) and the sense of God can become familiar enough that it is always recognized as the same, This sense of the familiar is communicable and can be recognized form one believer to another. The mystical and devotional literature presents a kind of ordered sameness. One can read accounts as different form one experiencer to another as those between St. Augustine and A.W. Tozer and still find passages that seem to be talking about the same things. This is amplified times millions of believers in the history of the church who have experienced the same things. Even though there is diversification and difference there is still sameness. This is not even confined to mystics. The same can be said of conversion accounts that the same aspects keep popping up. Once can recognize the work of God from one person to another, form one time to the next, from one culture to all cultures. But, the skeptic will ask, what about the vast array of different religions? These differences are due to cultural constructs. One experiences God beyond words, and when one tries to speak of such experiences one must encode them in a symbolic universe, that is to say, in culture. These differences in symbolic universes over time have spelled out the differences in the many religions. But there is a cretin unity even between all the differences in religion. The data presented long term effects of religious experience (see articles on RE in this blog) represents typologies, which can be used to compare "peak experience" with that of other phenomena. The Peak experiencers can be grouped together into a collection of those who have experiences X. They are not isolated assortments of differing phenomena. These studies do represent differing cultures and times. Thus, religious experience has a consistency to it even between cultures.


Archetypal symbology universal.



Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences. Abraham H. Maslow

Appendix I. An Example of B-Analysis


"...Jungian archetypes which can be recovered in several ways. I have managed to get it in good introspects simply by asking them directly to free associate to a particular symbol. The psychoanalytic literature, of course, has many such reports. Practically every deep case history will report such symbolic, archaic ways of viewing the woman, both in her good aspects and her bad aspects. (Both the Jungians and the Kleinians recognize the great and good mother and the witch mother as basic archetypes.) Another way of getting at this is in terms of the artificial dream that is suggested under hypnosis. It can also probably be investigated by spontaneous drawings, as the art therapists have pointed out. Still another possibility is the George Klein technique of two cards very rapidly succeeding each other so that symbolism can be studied. Any person who has been psychoanalyzed can fairly easily fall into such symbolic or metaphorical thinking in his dreams or free associations or fantasies or reveries.




Archetypal Symbology linked to Peak experience.



The link from Archetypes to religious experience is supplied by Maslow as well, in a quotation already sited in Religious Experience Arguments. He argues that the ability to relate "B knowledge" to "C knowledge" where the female (Or the male) is balanced in the perception of the other between goddess and whore, and the proper ego relation is sorted out, is the managing of the sacred and profane. He points out that anyone can learn to see in this manner and that it is indicative of primitive people in their religious experiences as they explained the world through the sense of the numinous.

d) Anyone can have peck experience --universal to humanity



Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences

Abraham H. Maslow

Appendix D. What is the Validity of Knowledge Gained in Peak-Experiences?

"To summarize, the major changes in the status of the problem of the validity of B-knowledge, or illumination-knowledge, are: (A) shifting it away from the question of the reality of angels, etc., i.e., naturalizing the question; (B) affirming experientially valid knowledge, the intrinsic validity of the enlarging of consciousness, i.e., of a wider range of experiencing; (C) realizing that the knowledge revealed was there all the time, ready to be perceived, if only the perceiver were "up to it," ready for it. This is a change in perspicuity, in the efficiency of the perceiver, in his spectacles, so to speak, not a change in the nature of reality or the invention of a new piece of reality which wasn't there before. The word "psychedelic" (consciousness-expanding) may be used here. Finally, (D) this kind of knowledge can be achieved in other ways; we need not rely solely on peak-experiences or peak-producing drugs for its attainment. There are more sober and laborious—and perhaps, therefore, better in some ways in the long run—avenues to achieving transcendent knowledge (B-knowledge). That is, I think we shall handle the problem better if we stress ontology and epistemology rather than the triggers and the stimuli."


2) Why Does God seem Hidden to SO many people?

a) God is not strictly speaking "invisable."



According to Hartshorne, "[o]nly God can be so universally important that no subject can ever wholly fail or ever have failed to be aware of him (in however dim or unreflective fashion)." Now the issue of why God doesn't hold a "press conference" has do do with the fact that God does not communicate by violating normal causal principles. In process terms, the "communication" of God must be understood as the prehension of God by human beings. A "prehension" is the response of an occasion to the entire past world (both the contiguous past and the remote past.) As God is in every occasion's past actual world, every occasion must "prehend" or take account of God.


It should be noted that "prehension" is a generic mode of perception that does not necessarily entail consciousness or sensory experience. In previous postings I explained that there a two modes of pure perception --"perception in the mode of causal efficacy" and "perception in the mode of presentational immediacy." If God is present to us, then it is in the presensory perceptual mode of causal efficacy as opposed to the sensory and conscious perceptual mode of presentational immediacy. That is why God is "invisible", i.e. invisible to sense perception. The foundation for experience of God lies in the nonsesnory nonconscious mode of prehension. So now, there is the further question: Why is there variability in our experience of God?. Or, why are some of us atheists, pantheists, theists, etc.? Every prehension has an initial datum derived from God, yet there are a multiplicity of ways in which this datum is prehended from diverse perspectives.


I agreed with Hume that sense perception tells us nothing about efficient causation (or final causation for that matter). Hume was actually presupposing causal efficacy in his attempt to deny it (i.e., in his relating of sense impressions to awareness). Causation could be described as an element of experience, but as Whitehead explains, this experience is not sensory experience. From Hume's own analysis Whitehead derives at least two forms of nonsensory perception: the perception of our own body and the nonsensory perception of one's past.

b). Atheists basically deny the validity of religious experience because they assume that all perception is sense perception.



Or, they deny sense perception to theists when they actually presuppose it themselves (Hume is a case in point).

c) All people experience the reality of God or the "Holy" all the time.



But this is at an unconscious level. However, in some people, this direct prehension of the "Holy" rises to the level of conscious experience. We generally call theses people "mystics". Now, the reason why a few people are conscious of God is not the result of God violating causal principle; some people are just able to conform to God's initial datum in greater degree than other people can. I don't think that God chooses to make himself consciously known to some and not to others. That would make God an elitist. Now, the question as to why I am a theist as opposed to an atheist does not have to do with me experiencing some exceptional religious or mystical experience. Rather, I believe that these extraordinary experiences of the great religious leaders are genuine and that they do conform to the ultimate nature of things. It's not necessarily a "blind leap" of faith, as my religious beliefs are accepted, in part, on the basis of whether or not they illuminate my experience of reality.


The upshot of all of this is religious belief is normative for human behavior. It is not merely "normal" but "normative" meaning it sets the standard. Belief is basic to human psyche, to our understanding of the good, of meaning in life, the ultiamte limits of reality, the grounding of nature and being itself, there is no way belie in God can be thought of as an extraordinary claim! We might think of it as extraordinary in the the sense of being unique, like no other claim, but in that case it makes no sense to subject it to the regular canons of science as though God's presence is given in daily empirical data. Obviously the more intelligent evidential standard is that the evidence has to be fit for the claim. Fit, not dazzling, not impossible, not amazing, no beyond our ability to produce, but it has to fit the case. It has to be rational, and able to stand a prima facie burden, and it has to fit the proof attempted.


Thus the atheist ploy has achieved a standard where all other forms of evidence save scientific data, why they blithely refer to as "facts," can be used to bolster certain shallow claims of "proof" for a straw man world view that is quasi scientific and supposedly an alternative to religious belief while denigrating all other forms of knowledge (including scinece that doesn't agree with them) save the selective list of "facts" deemed pertinent to their case. The effect being that civilization take one more hit as all forms of thinking and knowledge are eliminated save this one, a quasi-scientific approach to knowledge which is ideological in both tone and function.


Part 2 of the argument "more contra ECREP"

sources:



Marcelo Truzzi “on some unfair practices toward claims of the Paranormal.” This article was published in slightly edited form in:Edward Binkowski, editor, Oxymoron: Annual Thematic Anthology of the Arts and Sciences, Vol.2: The Fringe, New York: Oxymoron Media, Inc., 1998. It is also found on the website Skeptical Investigations: http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/anomalistics/practices.htm visited 7/7/08

on line version of Truzzi article


Ed J. Gracely ”Why Extraordinary Claims Demand Extraordinary Proof. This article first appeared in the December 1998 issue of Phactum, the newsletter of the Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking (PhACT). Dr. Gracely is Associate Professor of Community and Preventive Medicine at the MCP*Hahnemann School of Medicine in Philadelphia. This article was posted on July 24, 2003. It is now found on:Quackwatch http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/extraproof.html


Abraham MaslowReligious Values and peak Experience,

text online: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/maslow.htm


url for my RE argument: http://www.doxa.ws/experience/mystical.html

Atheists cling to Cherished myth of "science beatting religion"

 this post started with a childish little atheist named "wiseone's2cents" who claimed that all evidence supporting religion is faked and that the Catholics pay scientists to fake evidence. His original comment:

I will join in on the fight. I'm sure they are watching me and trying to silence me as we speak(I've already been threatened.lol).ROTFLOL!!!!!But the cats out of the bag, and more and more people are catching on to the mass brainwashing!

 I said:

that's a silly argument. scinece is not proof. this is nothing but the ideology of the fortress of facts. how many times have atheists denied they belief in it but here is again.

show me a single scientific fact that disproves anymore than particular ideas of God.

 Then Magritte says

This is a rather revealing statement. I've said in the past that the defining characteristic of theology over time is strategic retreat from knowledge. It seems the defining characteristic of God is - not having defining characteristics!

 Meta:

  But in other fields (remember religion not supposed to be scinece) you wold call that progress.

surgeons stop hacking off limbs when there's a wound they can't treat, and start opporating because they learn about germs, so you call that progress.

theolgoians say the earth wasn't' created in six days becuase science shows us it's older than it should be if that were true. and we have evidence that humanity evolved so it's not created in one day. you say "O see scinece is destroying religion."

the medicos had to change practice and develop methods of opporating becuase they discovered new info. that's progress.

theolgoians stop certain outdated beliefs and replace them with theology like process that incorporates evolution you say that's destroying religion.

the reason is because you assume fundie assumptions about revelation rather than seeking out historical assumptions about it.

you are a fundie. your assumptions are fundamentalist.

 Originally Posted by Magritte

That's a poor analogy. There's no such thing as apophatic science.

 Meta
 yes there is. Read Popper. that's all there is according to him.

atheists really do believe very deeply in the fortress of facts concept. Popper really does disprove it.



Originally Posted by Magritte

What utter foolishness.

Popper's principle is that scientific propositions should be falsifiable. Theology's (tacit) principle is that religious propositions must be UNfalsifiable. That's why the state of affairs has developed such that the borders of science and religion are complementary, not congruent. Science advances, religion withdraws; through negative reinforcement, religion learns to make "safe" nonspecific statements only(*). Hence, apophatic theology.

(* I suppose this only applies to liberal theology; "Bob" knows there are plenty of yahoos clinging to falsified religious beliefs)

 Meta:

(1) there's no difference in saying what I said and saying "that scientific propositions should be falsifiable" those are the same thing so you are not refutting what I said. My analysis that that means that science is not a fortress of facts, atheism is not being proved and so on is still the case.

(2) your assertion Theology's (tacit) principle is that religious propositions must be UNfalsifiable. that's a lie you made it up. I don't know of single theologian, council or creed that say that. you are incompetent, you are ignorant you have no training. its' just another atheist atheist know nothing lies to lecture theologian on something he's never studied

(3) you define the refinement of religoius ideas as "withdraw" and purposely refuse to use the same terminology of scinece when it becomes outdated and people move to some other theory. The truth is scinece is littered with disproved theories from scinece retreated.

(4) you admit that science and religion have different domains. that means you are contradicting yourself when you turn around nad say ignorant. y that "region is withdrawing." Withdrawn form what? form a Territory that was not it's won how bad is that?

you want it bot ways. you know better to claim that they have the same domain but then also you want to pretend that religion is losing some imaginary contest that it never undertook in the first place.

(5) "through negative reinforcement, religion learns to make "safe" nonspecific statements " That's just another way of saying we are becoming more exacting and accurate in what go into which domain. In ancient times people mixed the two and used religion to explain the physical world because they didn't have sickness. As science evolves then obviously you have to disentangle them. that's not matter of one beating up the other it's just a matter of taxonomy.

you want to use the terminology that privileges scinece give is some imaginary victory in a mythical struggle it's not evening just so you can feel special about being an atheist becuase you have been pelted with truths and you see thee utter stupidity of your childish ideology.

The more clearly you begin to see that the fortress of facts is a house of cards the more tightly you clinch the last cherished lies that buttress the illusion.

Holy Confirmation Bias Batman!

"Confirmation Bias" is a constant slogan of the atheists on CARM. Every time I put up any kind of proof or show any data they sing out with "confirmation bias." In threads Backup (on CARM 0f course) argues that Christians are stupider than atheists. Every example he applies his own criteria, which I'm sure is the most unbiased objective in the world; finds that the atheist who claims little aliens assigned her to destroy Christianity is not nutty but those tho think Moses wrote the Pentateuch are much so than she. (that is Aschyra S.)

one thread is here:

and

One here:



NOTE that thread has been closed.

I thought he was a provocateur because of these. In in the interest of spreading sunshine, which surely entails spreading understanding, maybe there's more there.


In the attempt to spread understanding I will give you my understanding of things and I hope he will answer rationally.


Now first of all I can't deny that there are a great mean y stupid Christians. I don't its fair to say that there are more of them than of atheists, at least proportionally. the proportion of intelligent learned atheist has greatly diminished since my day, when i wan an atheist.

Both of these outlooks are unfair. It's unfair to try and say that Christianity must be wrong because it has so many more stupid people. There's an objective measurement that proves this is wrong. I'll tell you that in a minute. The finding that atheists have gotten stupider, while true is unfair to use as a weapon becuase there's a logical reason there too, and neither case entails a correlation between the stupid population and the truth content of the belief.

(1) why are there more stupid atheists now than there used to be?

More atheists are less intelligent proportionately because in the old days people became atheists due to contacts in college. That was the major way one became an atheist. A very small minority of workers became so due to communist affiliation but there were never more than 2% communists America at the most communistic time. Now there's a huge number of young people who become atheist becuase they are looking for an identity and atheism is reaching out on the net. Naturally they are going to attract more people with less than a college education.

(2) Why are more stupid Christians than atheists?

By "Stupid" I mean less intellectual. Because there are a lot more Christians than atheists. Christian more clearly fit the bell curve. I've said this before backup didn't think about it, but if you think about it is absolute. it is the answer. it proves why there are more and why that doesn't spell defeat for the belief system.

There will always be more "non intellectuals" than intellectuals. this is becuase of the bell curve. The small portion that is more than 100 in IQ (average) goes down further and get's smaller as the IQ get's higher. But people who are not intellectual include all the average people (who are like the largest group) and then the below average. The intelligent people only include the above average. So they will always be smaller as long as there is a bell curve.

this is not to endorse the book the bell curve. that's a different matter. the basic set up that there is a bell curve as a result of plotting intelligence on a graph is absolute y true. that means there will more stupid Christians than atheists because Christians are 80% of the public, they are the public. The are not just in the majority they are practically the whole country.

actual are only about three percent. the number of people who are angry with established religion lets say including those who say "there may be a God I don't like organized religion" are 12%, that includes the 3% atheists.

Naturally there are more stupid atheists than used to be but still many more stupid Christians. but this also means there are more intelligent Christians than atheists too.

(3) Why we can't connect intelligence to Belief.

Of all the studies on religious belief and IQ only 6 support the idea that religious people are less intelligent than skeptics. The studies say this also included theological liberals so they are not even rally excluding religious believers from the intelligent group. They are also older and less well done studies.

there are 16 studies that show either religious people are smarter or there is correlation.

6 t0 16 in favor of the no correlation hypothesis.

all of that can be found here:

http://www.doxa.ws/other/smarter.html


(4) These last two points spell out the realization that we can't correlate intelligence with being right.

Intelligent people can believe stupid things.

The year I started to Doctoral work at UT Dallas two guys from that school won the Noble prize for scinece. One of them was a Mormon and a creationist! the other was a conservative Christian of some other stripe.

I have found web sites of very intelligent people who know a lot of science who know philosophy of scinece (which I studied in Ph.D. work) but they are ID guys.

It is extremely insulting and angering when this guy says that such people are "crazies." I think televangelists are crazy. I can them as nuts some them are true nut cases. you are also talking about a lot people I've known who were good kind decent people and some thing pretty smart. you are intentionally provoking hostility.

I've known plenty of smart people who had stupid ideas. I've known a few smart republicans. believe it or not. although I would never vote republican. perish the thought. My father would be spinning if I did.

In response he says this:

 So the only dishonest, stupid, or crazy atheists anyone could come up with was Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Dan Barker (which I do not agree with) and a very small group of speculative "historians" with dubious research skills that may not even be atheists.

It looks like our movement is almost 100% pure.

In all honesty, why is this information so threatening?

I am totally serious. This makes no sense to me whatsoever.

I am not making fun or in anyway trying to be insulting. I asked a serious question in order to get an answer.

Can anybody explain what seems to be a very odd overreaction?

 then he also says this:

Hi Deist,

Metacrock listed you and me both on his stupid list. High five bro!

Hooks too. I can't remember who else.

I also listed a guy named Keith on carm as well as Big Thinker and MFFJM2 and others. I also said I've seen thousands of stupid atheist on the net in the 13 years I've been doing this. I made clear that I consider most atheist I've seen on the net as indicative of this kind of thing. they are just as bad as the fundies. This is a classic studying in seeing only what one wants to see. Every time I named an atheist he just asserted that it was "obvious" that their behavior and beliefs were not as nutty as the fundies. When He had to admit one was he questioned her atheism.

Why Atheists Have No Ears

 


Apologetics is not for unbelievers. It's not exactly for convincing oneself either, but it is definitely not for atheists. Its' pointless trying to convince someone of something that is contrary to their paradigm. Paradigms control all. People  are not capable of seeing into a different world. They live in the world they are in, the world of the paradigm. Paradigm shifts only happen when there are too many anomalies to be absorbed by the old paradigm. Until that happens there's no convincing someone his paradigm is wrong. Now you might think this means that we should go about the task of trying pile up anomalies. The problem with that is atheists are able to absorb vast amounts of anomalies into their paradigm and they employ a verity of methods to do so. Kuhn says this is what happens, the ruling paradigm can adsorb a certain degree of anomalies and until you get so many that the paradigm can't deal with them any more and the paradigm starts to shift, they are just all absorbed and don't' seem to matter.

Now I think little by little the paradigm is shifting, it will eventually turn over. It will probably never be non-materialists or "spiritualist." But it is clear that the old paradigm has given way in several areas and ideas that would once have been considered totally loony are now part of the new paradigm. The problem is the new paradigm is packaged as a continuation of the old; in other words, the old materialist paradigm has now given way to the new physicalist. The difference being that under the old paradigm (materialist) only materiel things were possible. Reality was thought of as the "material" realm. Then it was realized that energy is another form of matter, so it's not mater itself and thus more than just mater is possible.So the new paradigm (phsyicalist) says that only what is physical is possible. Spirit still ruled out (except it can come in the back door in the form of energy) but it is recognized that there are two media for existence, rather than just the material there is also energy (which is another form of matter).

Meanwhile, there are many areas through which the evil idealism has seeped into the new paradigm: healing in medicine, the idea of mind over matter, realms beyond that of nature (which is what string membranes are) but they have to be packed as "physical." As long as it all part of "the physical" (which is idealist enough as it goes, then it can have a place. So ideas which never have been considered fifty years ago are now front and center. But the only proviso is we can't acknowledge it. We have to keep up the charade that idealism/spiritualism is beaten and materialism (in the form of physicalism which allows for energy) prevails. But in prevailing it makes room for other realms beyond that of nature (space/time) mind over matter, healing in medicine, archetypes, here's a complete list:

(1) Quantum Theory (no need for cause/effect)

(2) Big bang Cosmology (realm beyond the natrual)

(3) Medicine (healing)

(4) Consciousness (invites concept of dualism)

(6) Maslow's Archetypes (universal ideas)

(7) Miracles (empirical evidence)

(8) Near Death Experiences (scientific evidence)

(9) Esp Research (the fact that they do it)

(10) Validity of religious experince (Shrinks no longer assume pathology)

(11) Mind over matter (pleacebo effect).


For this reason I am willing to think that the paradigm will eventually shift. It probably wont ever allow for "supernatural," but it will contain supernatural-like ideas masquerading as materialist/physicialist. We already see it now in the mind over matter of the placebo effect.

Nevertheless, despite this movement, the materialist/physicalist paradigm can absorb an almost infinite amount things that are anomalous in thier behavior simply because "energy" covers a multitude of idealist propositions. Anything not material can always be sold as "energy." Pure idea can be sold as brain chemistry because it has to be transmitted that way. Thus Dawkins insists there cant' be a mind without a brain. But what's really being said there is that any form of ideal or idea or "mind" or anything not material can always be coopted as "energy" and thus it can never be anomalous under a physicalist paradigm. But there's another reason as well why it will take a long time for a big paradigm shift. There is no end of atheist incredulity. The physicalist paradigm lends itself to incredulity because we know it works. We don't know the range of its limitations because we can't produce evidence under the same paradigm of things beyond the paradigm, so of course we can exclude any hint of actual anomaly. Of course we can't expect evidence under the paradigm that would legitimate anomalies of that same paradigm, then they wouldn't be anomalies. The incredulity factor always allows one to put it in the magic pressure cooker and (whish wish) it's gone!

Here's an example of what I mean. Here's an example of a Saint making miracle from my miracles page. It's no longer found on the URL it once was, so the link doesn't work. But it was there:

Society for the Little Flower (Website) FAQ (visited 6/3/01) St. Theresse of Lisieux

http://www.littleflower.org/therese/faq.html#4

"Regarding St. Therese, in 1923 the Church approved of two spontaneous cures unexplained by medical treatment. Sister Louise of St. Germain was cured of the stomach ulcers she had between 1913 and 1916. The second cure involved Charles Anne, a 23 year old seminarian who was dying from advanced pulmonary tuberculosis. The night he thought he was dying, Charles prayed to Therese. Afterward, the examining doctor testified, "The destroyed and ravaged lungs had been replaced by new lungs, carrying out their normal functions and about to revive the entire organism. A slight emaciation persists, which will disappear within a few days under a regularly assimilated diet." These two miracles resulted in Therese becoming beatified."

The atheists on carm treated this with total incredulity. It has to be a lie. First they said I made it up. then I linked to the site and they could see it was their and howled with laughter. How stupid could I be? It's a religious site dedicated to that saint to of course it's a lie! I gave all the evidence on miracles pages about the rules of miracles in RCC and showed that they use medical evdience, there x-rays of the lungs and so on. But they insisted this is not good because its not in a medical journal. So I emailed a member of the committee, a medical expert who does research for the medical committee, and he vouched for its authenticity. That's no good, he' on that committee so he's lying. I brought up the x-rays, well I don't have the x-rays so its' still lie. I would have to have the x-rays in my hot little hand before it could actually be accepted. If i actually get the xrays from the Vatican, which were taken in the early part of the 20th century, (like that's a fair requirement that I some little guy in Texas, a prot, with no official connections could get these xrays), if I did have them don't you think they would still say its a lie? x-rays can be fabricated. So it's an anomaly and it will always be an anomaly because one may always doubt.

I recently had a discussion on my message boards about my mystical experience arguments (The Trace of God). I was as clear as anyone could be, and i worked several times to meet the evidential burden required by the atheist dialogue "partner." But this guy just played dense. He refused to get it. But I think a Chrsitain poster named "Wordgazer" really summed it up best:

FWIW, I didn't have any trouble following or understanding Metacrock's reasoning, and I do think he addressed each of Marxiavelli's concerns. What it looked like to me was that Marxiavelli was looking at things through his scientific materialist worldview, and was either unable or unwilling to shift to a different perspective. For example, he seemed to think Metacrock was using the religious experience argument to prove one particular set of religious beliefs, and because they didn't do this, Marxiavelli appeared to think that this trumped all rational warrant for a belief in anything non-material at all. But Metacrock was not arguing for Christianity; he was arguing for the interaction between humans and something Divine that was undefined. What I was seeing was something that I myself have experienced-- the challenge by an atheist to prove theism, but only within the atheism box. Invitations to climb out of the box and look further, were apparently misunderstood as not answering the questions. There were a few times that Metacrock got frustrated, but I really don't think he was being "extremely and unnecessarily aggressive."

We live in different worlds. The world of the atheist is not the world of the theist and they don't want to see into my world. They want to reassure themselves that it's ok to deny my world is valid and to secure their own world. One can hide a lot of anomalies that way. As Wordgazer said it's really just a matter of who wants to see what. Of course they would impune my motives for wanting to see the validity of my world, but pat themselves on the back and rationalize their biases as "hard nosed critical thinking." Hard nosed critical thinking that does not want to see.

This is why the realizing God (existential phenomenological who ha) is really the only tenable approach. Until one is willing make a realization, or until one does make such a realization, the anomalies will always be absorbed into he paradigm. "Realizing God" is nothing more than a change in the ground, a shift in consciousness, a paradigm shift. The materialist paradigm is front end loaded with built-in incredulity as a defense mechanism against shifts.

But all of this really biols down to is good old fashioned sin. "5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." (John 1:5). No amount of evdience will ever shit them and no amount of logic will ever read them.

Now this doesn't mean that I wont continue the friendships I've made. I have made freinds with some atheists, and some who are good people who I really like. I will continue those friendships and we can discuss anything. But I wont discuss God with them or God arguments. There's no point. The literal reading of the "great commission" (the Bible doesn't call it that) says "where ever you happen to be going, tell them the truth." I did tell them. They didn't want to get it.

Stupid Atheist Tircks: Some atheists on CARM defend arguing form fallacies Because Apolostist point them out.

 



Stupid atheist tricks: supporting argument for incredulity!
As incredible as it may seem this atheist actually defends the notion that logcial fallacies, some of them are valid arguments merely becuase it's apologists who point them out. If apologists point out the bad logic then it must be good logic, (HU?)

Originally Posted by Metacrock what? you are saying your fallacious reasoning is better in some way than mine? that's nonsense. A fallacy is a Fallacy. Argument from incredulity is not arguemnt at all

Deist:

give me an example of what you mean about "theistic incredulity."

Only apologists say arguments from incredulity are no good. Otherwise, we are forced to believe in Heavens Gate and Mormonism, along with Hari Krishna, and Jerry Falwell. Not to mention the Elvis resurrection.

 Originally Posted by Metacrock

that's BS. argument from incredulity is clearly circular reasonnig. Every logician in the world says it's wrong.

I have better reasons to disbelieve cults than "I refuse to believe them." That is a shallow and rather stupid reason to disbelieve anything.

I can refute scinece on that basis. "I refuse to believe science." argument from incredulity and by your reasoning then that's a valid arguemnt.

Diest

Unless you believe in fairies and hobgoblins, arguments from incredulity are valid. To say they aren't is just an apologist trick to divert to discussing why fairies may be possible, and to suggest that since one can't disprove fairies, they are probably real.

another guy posts this fairy Garden nonsense.

 http://www.fairygardens.com/sightings/adult1.html

Meta:
 incredulity does not disprove this. You are confusing the rejection of unreasonable claims with argument from incredulity. Its' stupid to think that Thomas Ananias is on a par with stuff like the fairy deal. You are not saying the same thing as "I refuse to believe therefore it must be false" when you say "I can't believe that because it's too outlandish."

In the first case the truth of the assertion is based upon rejecting or accepting. So you are litter allying it's rejecting it that makes it false. You are confusing that with having reasoning pertaining to soundness and reasonably.

It's not unsound and unreasonable because I reject it, I reject it because it's unsound and unreasonable.


 another example where Deist rejects argument from analogy as a fallacy.

Then he also defends argument form analogy.


 Originally Posted by Deist View Post no 11

"Sorry, Meta, I don't buy into the apologists tricks. Analogies are very aprapo. Otherwise, people have to spend a lifetime discussing whether or not Mohammed flew to heaven on a winged horse."

Pointing out fallacies is an apologist tirck. At the very least htat means he's not only badly read and doesn't know logic but he's too lazy to look it up.

that's two informal fallacies that he's been willing to accept just because apologists use them. This should be known to all it's common knowledge and easily found on any site (not atheist) that discusses logic. Argument from analogy is not proof.

(in the TNG episode where Data lost on a world just discovering scinece he tells the woman doctor as a refutation to her argument 'you are arguing from analogy.')

It should be obvious at this point that atheism is not a movement for intelligent intellectuals. Its' a movement for the unwashed masses who don't think. It's for attention starved high school kids who are angry at their parents and churches. What about all of those atheist websites. While they pout all sorts information into them to enable them make bad arguments why don't they educate them about logic?

Debuncking Atheist Fortress of Facts part 2

Karl Popper

Notice how in the comment section in part 1 and atheist asserts "it's a fact there are no Gods." If it is a fact it's not gleaned from science. So it must be made known through that old no good Philosophy that CARM atheists are always running down. If so I'd like to see their argument. Where do you suppose it is? I think it's with the rest of the imaginary fortress of facts, which is actually a house of cards.

footnote numbers taken over from part 1.

Not Facts but Verisimilitude:

Karl Popper (1902-1994) is one of the most renewed and highly respected figures in the philosophy of science. Popper was from Vienna, of Jewish origin, maintained a youthful flirtation with Marxism, and left his native land due to the rise of Nazism in the late thirties. He is considered to be among the ranks of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. Popper is highly respected by scientists in a way that most philosophers of science are not.[15]

He was also a social and political philosopher of considerable stature, a self-professed ‘critical-rationalist’, a dedicated opponent of all forms of scepticism, conventionalism, and relativism in science and in human affairs generally, a committed advocate and staunch defender of the ‘Open Society’, and an implacable critic of totalitarianism in all of its forms. One of the many remarkable features of Popper's thought is the scope of his intellectual influence. In the modern technological and highly-specialised world scientists are rarely aware of the work of philosophers; it is virtually unprecedented to find them queuing up, as they have done in Popper's case, to testify to the enormously practical beneficial impact which that philosophical work has had upon their own. But notwithstanding the fact that he wrote on even the most technical matters with consummate clarity, the scope of Popper's work is such that it is commonplace by now to find that commentators tend to deal with the epistemological, scientific and social elements of his thought as if they were quite disparate and unconnected, and thus the fundamental unity of his philosophical vision and method has to a large degree been dissipated.[16]

Unfortunately for our purposes we will only be able to skim the surface of Popper’s thoughts on the most crucial aspect of this theory of science, that science is not about proving things but about falsifying them.

Above we see that Dawkins, Stenger and company place their faith in the probability engineered by scientific facts. The problem is probability is not the basis upon which one chooses one theory over another, at least according to Popper. This insight forms the basis of this notion that science can give us verisimilitude not “facts.” Popper never uses the phrase “fortress of facts,” we could add that, science is not a fortress of facts. Science is not giving us “truth,” its’ giving something in place of truth, “verisimilitude.” The term verisimilar means “having the appearance of truth, or probable.” Or it can also mean “depicting realism” as in art or literature.”[17] According to Popper in choosing between two theories one more probable than the other, if one is interested I the informative content of the theory, one should choose the less probable. This is paradoxical but the reason is that probability and informative content very inversely. The higher informative content of a theory is more predictive since the more information contained in a statement the greater the number of ways the statement will turn out to fail or be proved wrong. At that rate mystical experience should be the most scientific view point. If this dictum were applied to a choice between Stenger’s atheism and belief in God mystical God belief would be more predictive and have less likelihood of being wrong because it’s based upon not speaking much about what one experiences as truth. We will see latter that this is actually the case in terms of certain kinds of religious experiences. I am not really suggesting that the two can be compared. They are two different kinds of knowledge. Even though mystical experience per se can be falsified (which will be seen in subsequent chapters) belief in God over all can’t be. The real point is that arguing that God is less probable is not a scientifically valid approach.

Thus the statements which are of special interest to the scientist are those with a high informative content and (consequentially) a low probability, which nevertheless come close to the truth. Informative content, which is in inverse proportion to probability, is in direct proportion to testability. Consequently the severity of the test to which a theory can be subjected, and by means of which it is falsified or corroborated, is all-important.[18]

Scientific criticism of theories must be piecemeal. We can’t question every aspect of a theory at once. For this reason one must accept a certain amount of background knowledge. We can’t have absolute certainty. Science is not about absolute certainty, thus rather than speak of “truth” we speak of “verisimilitude.” No single observation can be taken to falsify a theory. There is always the possibility that the observation is mistaken, or that the assumed background knowledge is faulty.[19] Uneasy with speaking of “true” theories or ideas, or that a corroborated theory is “true,” Popper asserted that a falsified theory is known to be false. He was impressed by Tarski’s 1963 reformulation of the corresponded theory of truth. That is when Popper reformulated his way of speaking to frame the concept of “truth-likeness” or “verisimilitude,” according to Thronton.[20] I wont go into all the ramifications of verisimilitude, but Popper has an extensive theory to cover the notion. Popper’s notions of verisimilitude were critixized by thinkers in the 70’s such as Miller, Tichy’(grave over the y) and Grunbaum (umlaut over the first u) brought out problems with the concept. In an attempt to repair the theory Popper backed off claims to being able to access the numerical levels of verisimilitude between two theories.[21] The resolution of this problem has not diminished the admiration for Popper or his acceptance in the world of philosophy of science. Nor is the solution settled in the direction of acceptance for the fortress of facts. Science is not closer to the fact making business just because there are problems with verisimilitude.

Science doesn’t prove but Falsifies

The aspect of Popper’s theory for which he is best known is probably the idea of falsification. In 1959 He published the Logic of Scientific Discovery in which he rigorously and painstakingly demonstrated why science can’t prove but can only disprove, or falsify. Popper begins by observing that science uses inductive methods and thus is thought to be marked and defined by this approach. By the use of the inductive approach science moves from “particular statements,” such as the result of an experiment, to universal statements such as an hypothesis or theories. Yet, Popper observes, the fallacy of this kind of reasoning has always been known. Regardless of how many times we observe white swans “this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.”[22] He points out this is the problem of universal statements, which can’t be grounded in experience because experience is not universal, at least not human experience. One might observe this is also a problem of empirical observation. Some argue that we can know universal statements to be true by experience; this is only true if the experiences are universal as well. Such experience can only be a singular statement. This puts it in the same category with the original problem so it can’t do any better.[23] The only way to resolve the problem of induction, Popper argues, is to establish a principle of induction. Such a principle would be a statement by which we could put inductive inferences into logically acceptable form. He tells us that upholders of the need for such a principle would say that without science can’t provide truth or falsehood of its theories.[24]

The principle can’t be a purely logical statement such as tautology or a prori reasoning, if it could there would be no problem of induction. This means it must be a synthetic statement, empirically derived. Then he asked “how can we justify statement on rational grounds?” [25] After all he’s just demonstrated that an empirical statement can’t be the basis of a universal principle. Then to conclude that there must be a universal principle of logic that justifies induction knowing that it ahs to be an empirical statement, just opens up the problem again. He points out that Reichenbach[26] would point that such the principle of induction is accepted by all of science.[27] Against Reinchenback he sties Hume.[28] Popper glosses over Kant’s attempt at a prori justification of syetnic a priori statements.[29] In the end Popper disparages finding a solution and determines that induction is not the hallmark of science. Popper argues that truth alludes science since it’s only real ability is to produce probability. Probability and not truth is what science can produce. “…but scientific statements can only attain continuous degrees of probability whose unattainable upper and lower limits are truth and falsity’.”[30] He goes on to argue against probability as a measure of inductive logic.[31] Then he’s going to argue for an approach he calls “deductive method of testing.. In this case he argues that an hypothesis can only be empirically tested and only after it has been advanced. [32]

What has been established so far is enough to destroy the fortress of facts of idea. The defeat of a principle of induction as a means of understanding truth is primary defeat for the idea that science is going about establishing a big pile of facts. What all of this is driving at of course is the idea that science is not so much the process of fact discovery as it is the process of elimination of bad idea taken as fact. Science doesn’t prove facts it disproves hypotheses.. Falsifying theories is the real business of science. It’s the comparison to theory in terms of what is left after falsification has been done that makes for a seeming ‘truth-likeness,’ or verisimilitude. Falsification is a branch of what Popper calls “Demarcation.” This issue refers to the domain or the territory of the scientists work. Induction does not mark out the proper demarcation. The criticism he is answering in discussing demarcation is that removing induction removes for science it’s most important distinction from metaphysical speculation. He states that this is precisely his reason for rejecting induction because “it does not provide a suitable distinguishing mark of the empirical non metaphysical character of a theoretical system,”[33] this is what he calls “demarcation.”

Popper writes with reference to positivistic philosophers as the sort of umpires of scientific mythology. He was a philosopher and the project of the positivists was to “clear away the clutter” (in the words of A.J. Ayer) for science so it could get on with it’s work. Positivistic philosophers were the janitors of science. Positivists had developed the credo that “meaningful statements” (statements of empirical science) must be statements that are “fully decided.” That is to say, they had to be both falsifiable and verifiable. The requirement for verifiable is really a requirement similar to the notion of proving facts, or truth. Verifiability is not the same thing as facticiy or proof it’s easy to see how psychologically it reinforces th sense that science is about proving things. He quotes several positivists in reinforcing this idea: Thus Schlick says: “. . . a genuine statement must be capable of conclusive verification” Waismann says, “If there is no possible way to determine whether a statement is true then that statement has no meaning whatsoever. For the meaning of a statement is the method of its verification.”[34] Yet Popper disagrees with them. He writes that there is no such thing as induction. He discusses particular statements which are verified by experience just opens up the same issues he launched in the beginning one cannot derive universal statements from experience. “Therefore, theories are never theories are never empirically verifiable. He argues that the only way to deal with the demarcation problem is to admit statements that are not empirically verified.[35]

But I shall certainly admit a system as empirical or scientific only if it

is capable of being tested by experience. These considerations suggest

that not the verifiability but the falsifiability of a system is to be taken as a

criterion of demarcation. In other words: I shall not require of a

Scientific system that it shall be capable of being singled out, once and

for all, in a positive sense; but I shall require that its logical form shall

be such that it can be singled out, by means of empirical tests, in a

negative sense: it must be possible for an empirical scientific system to be refuted by experience.[36]

What this means in relation to the “fortress of facts” idea is that it transgresses upon the domain of science. Compiling a fortress of facts is beyond the scope of science and also denudes science of it’s domain.

He deals with the objection that science is supposed to give us positive knowledge and to reduce it to a system of falsification only negates its major purpose. He deals with this by saying this criticism carries little weight since the amount of positive information is greater the more likely it is to clash. The reason being laws of nature get more done the more they act as a limit on possibility, in other words, he puts it, “not for nothing do we call the laws of nature laws. They more they prohibit the more they say.”[37]

sources

[15] Steven Thornton, “Karl Popper,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter 2011 edition Edward N. Zalta Editor, URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/popper/ vested 2/6/2012

[16] ibid

[17] Miriam-Webster. M-W.com On line version of Webster’s dictionary. URL: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/verisimilar?show=0&t=1328626983 visited 2/7/2012

[18] Thornton, ibid.

[19] ibid

[20] ibid

[21] ibid

[22] Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London, New York:Routledge Classics, original English publication 1959 by Hutchison and co. by Routldege 1992. On line copy URL: http://www.cosmopolitanuniversity.ac/library/LogicofScientificDiscoveryPopper1959.pdf digital copy by Cosmo oedu visited 2/6/2012, p4

[23] ibid

[24] ibid

[25] ibid, 5

[26] Hans Reinchenbach (1891-1953) German philosopher, attended Einstein’s lectures and contributed to work on Quantum Mechanics. He fled Germany to escape Hitler wound up teaching at UCLA.

[27] Popper, ibid, referece to , H. Reichenbach, Erkenntnis 1, 1930, p. 186 (cf. also pp. 64 f.). Cf. the penultimate paragraph of Russell’s chapter xii, on Hume, in his History of Western Philosophy, 1946,

p. 699.

[28] ibid, Popper, 5

[29] ibid, 6

[30] ibid 6

[31] ibid, 7

[32] ibid

[33] ibid 11

[34] ibid, 17, references to Schlick, Naturwissenschaften 19, 1931, p. 150. and Waismann, Erkenntnis 1, 1903, p. 229.

[35] Ibid 18

[36] ibid

[37] ibid, 19 the quotation about laws is found on p 19 but the over all argument is developed over sections 31-46 spanning pages 95-133.