Truth

You are correct that Science is not about trust. Trust comes in when people decide to accept or not accept predictions and/or explanations that are based on use of the scientific method. The predictions made based on scientific study are couched in terms of probabilities. Explanations made are suggested by the relevant data, and are always subject to further investigation or to replacement by explanations that are more in line with relevant data. Thus science does not demand trust.

Supernatural explanations and predictions demand trust.

So, for example, if your personal psychic told you that your picnic scheduled for tomorrow will be sunny and bright, but the local meteorologist said there is 90% chance of heavy showers, which do you trust? i.e., Do you make back up plans?

Sherlock - Was this from you or did a 4 year old hyjack your keyboard??

“Regarding your question, if I had a personal psychic then in my case I’d have a sound reason, so I’d already have established trust and that would be based on rational grounds. I do not have a personal psychic however because I’ve never encountered one who is trustworthy, then again I have encountered respected meteorologists who I should not have trusted.”

 

what a laugh.

I trust the meterologist’s weather report. Moreso now than in the past, because their methodologies and technological equipment have improved. i.e. I have a high degree of confidence in their improved use of the scientific method.

(note: Player is more handsome than I would have expected.)

Sherlock is that scary individual who has a few skills at drawing a conclusion and has instantly applied them to things he already decided were true without having used those skills. That’s not how science works. You start with the data, then see where it leads you, not start with a conclusion, then emulate logic-y sounding words to arrive there.

This thing about having a psychic you trust for instance. Why don’t you have one? You are intuitively doing what scientists do all the time: they determine the prior probability of a psychic providing accurate information. We have many examples of people who claim to be psychic. They make predictions. Those predictions are accurate at the same rate as chance. So the probability that a psychic is any better than guessing is extremely low.

I’m discussing the quality and structure of your argument. Thicken up that skin a little. I describe in detail the methodology of determining if a psychic could be good or not, and then you say I’m implying something about you when I say “that’s not how science works”. I’m not implying it, I’m saying it quite clearly, you don’t seem to know what I explained about prior probability, so yes, I think you have a poor understanding of science.

These are the specific words you used:

Regarding your question, if I had a personal psychic then in my case I’d have a sound reason, so I’d already have established trust and that would be based on rational grounds. I do not have a personal psychic however because I’ve never encountered one who is trustworthy, then again I have encountered respected meteorologists who I should not have trusted.
It implies that you could establish trust for a psychic on rational grounds. Did you not mean to imply that? Or, what did you mean by “rational grounds”?

Thanks for the link. I would love it if we sounded like those guys, but I’m not that good at referencing Leibniz off the cuff. It sounds a little rehearsed. That’s not an insult, I would expect them to have worked out what they want to say so it would make for a good radio program. I’m not sure why you linked it since you are discussing trust here, but they are discussing a sufficiently adequate explanation of a non-contingent being (or something like that). That would fit better in our other thread.

Also noteworthy, they arrive at an impasse. Here we are, 70 years later, picking this up as if we could arrive at a conclusion! A key moment comes around the 10:30 mark where Copleston says he doesn’t know the essence of God. This is scripturally sound in my opinion, according to many traditions, that is, we can’t know the mind of God. So although he could come up with a range of other logical proofs that there is something, or must be something, he has not begun to do the work to get from there to the God of Christianity or any god, or any miracles, or any way to access this god or how it enters in to our lives.

Okay, so you have some idea of how to perform an experiment. But you are still implying that it’s possible to do that experiment and find a psychic, if you had time, right? I’d love it if I had the time to dedicate myself to learning all the math needed to understand the Big Bang and where the limits of our knowledge are, but then someone else would have to do my job. We can’t all be experts in everything. In this modern world, with so much to know, we rely on each other. We have oversite committees to make sure the credentialing institutions are working and we have open universities so anyone can go and learn enough to eventually challenge the current theories. It happens all the time. We celebrate it.

So I don’t need to go looking for a personal psychic. I can just look at the available data and see that no one who says they are a psychic has ever submitted themselves to that kind of testing and passed. I don’t need some “other way of knowing” (paraphrasing there), because I’ve never seen another way of knowing that produces results like science does. I’m open minded, so if one comes along, I’ll consider it. But I did some of that searching when I was younger and I don’t need to sacrifice anymore to that pursuit.

 

I’m not confused at all. I’m asking why you would point out an “if X”, when you are aware of massive data that refutes “X”? It’s not totally clear that you accept that there is massive data against the existence of psychic powers, but you also aren’t claiming that psychics do exist. So I’m not confused, you said you COULD do an experiment to determine if someone had those powers and that’s all you said. Got it, no need for your comments about atheists not understanding science.

I’m asking, why would you do such an experiment, given the the low probability that you could find an individual with those powers? I already explained how I arrived at that probability, so don’t ask, just scroll up.

The original comment about psychics was by Tim on the 16th

if your personal psychic told you that your picnic scheduled for tomorrow will be sunny and bright, but the local meteorologist said there is 90% chance of heavy showers, which do you trust?
Any reasonable person would understand the question is comparing something implausible, something based on an arbitrary choice to believe in something extremely unlikely to be true, versus something based on scientific methods that have been proven and use data that is collected every day and methods that are constantly being refined. And he included a probability for the meteorological prediction. This is part of how you do science.

You changed this from a discussion of which method is better for determining what’s true to one about people accepting authority. You made up a fantasy world where you could find a psychic you trust, in the disguise of using the word “if”. You’ve been nothing but pedantic since then.

The fact that other scientific theories have been shown false or have been refined tells us absolutely nothing, other than that’s how theories work. The failure of Michelson Morley does not inform us at all about the possibility of psychic powers. You understand the concept of what a theory is but you don’t understand how to apply that concept.

Your confusion about “absence of evidence” is a common one, but I don’t how to sort that one out for you, and you’ve grown rather tiresome. Simply, you are really saying “anything is possible”. You’re correct. The question is, are you going to live as if a psychic can predict the weather, or that science can and it will tell you how certain the prediction is. This is more important than weather though, since we are delving into the question of are you going to live as if there is a god behind this universe or not.

What kind of god? The possibilities are endless and we have no way of knowing what a god might want if a god exists. How can you live as if there is a god if you don’t know anything about the god? If there is a god it may be nothing like the biblical god or like the god you imagine. How can you live as if there is a god behind the universe with no knowledge of its characteristics?

I don’t regard “people cannot forecast the weather relying on a supposed telepathic ability” as a theory at all. First, it’s stated as a negative which makes complicates things. And it doesn’t fit the definition of theory in the context of science. You have been pedantic from the beginning, refusing to define terms, and you are increasingly trying to put words in my mouth. These are troll behaviors. I assume the admins are already keeping notes. We set a pretty high bar here, allowing all sorts of wild conversation, but you’ve bumped your head on it a few times.

without evidence you should not believe it
That's pretty much my criteria. I don't have any evidence for psychic abilities.
might at any time be shown to be false by the emergence of new evidence.
True for all theories. But the quality of one theory doesn't mean anything about a different theory other than all theories are held to the same standard of evidence.
I do not confuse that with a statement of fact
This is one of those things that you need to figure out how to define. You've made it clear that things I've said are not facts, but you haven't said what a fact is. I've only heard about arbitrary axioms and the impossibility of proof. But you draw conclusions, and here you indicate there is something called a "statement of fact". What is that?

 

Please tell us is it or is it not possible that at some point in the future evidence might emerge that shows that some people can predict the weather psychically?

This is all that’s been asked of you to answer yes or no to that question are you willing to give me an answer?


I have answered that by defining what a theory is and how we know things and how we can’t know anything with 100% certainty. Psychic powers fall under “anything”, so yes, evidence could emerge.

I’m giving you the courtesy of answering this question with no qualifiers. But it’s a pedantic question. It doesn’t support this conversation. Don’t expect that I will keep answering questions like this.

“So do you regard the claim that “people cannot forecast the weather relying on a supposed telepathic ability” to be a theory supported by evidence?”

Should read - There is nothing to suggest or explain that they do.

I think the general idea is that the electromagnetic waves our brains produce are too weak to relay complex information like communication, so the possibility of something like telepathy existing is slim to none just based on the physics.

Looking at it in an evolutionary sense – the other forms of communication we use like speech and body language are good enough to help us survive, so even if telepathy was possible it wasn’t selected for.

Saying someone is closed minded is a double fallacy. It’s an insult about the person’s mental abilities and it’s a claim that your idea deserves attention. Let’s focus on your idea. Like I said in the story about the 4 year old, you have some premises and logic, but you can’t evaluate them. Things go south when you say “absurd” and “for all we know”.
If something is “influencing evolution”, then what is it? How do we measure it? What else is it effecting? Can we repeat this influencing some way? Observe it in nature? If not, how are you saying it exists in any way other than a possibility? And it’s not just that, it’s that people have asked these questions and tried to find these things and come up empty. I did it myself with those cards with the wavy lines and shapes back in the 70’s. We never did better than chance. Neither has anyone.

Messed that one up didn’t I? I meant to quote the part where Sherlock said we should be open minded about psychic powers. The grayed quote section above is actually my words in response to that. Sheesh, get it together!