Why We Don't Believe in Science

From a slightly different angle: the whole purpose of my post was to point out that useful and true are not the same thing. And I pointed out a "useful" method of thinking, talking about how it wasn't true, and then you jump all over me for it not being true.

I mean, f*ck, Larry, talk about missing the point.

I noted a statement/event and I'm talking about it. It just happened to be one of yours this one time.

And all you did was show how you completely failed to grasp the nature of the post. It doesn't matter which way you think about the plot. Think about it as being slightly curved, or perfectly flat, it doesn't matter, unless you have extremely unusual requirements. And that was the whole point of the post!

In this particular context, criticizing me for thinking of the plot as being curved, when it may not actually have been curved.... sigh. You were so focused on the tree that you didn't even see that there was a forest there.

Malor:

I'm not assuming the converse, Malor. That's another cognitive weakness that has been exhibited, and it seems commonplace. Just because I'm contesting your assumption that it was curved doesn't mean that I'm saying that it's perfectly flat. I'm saying that it could be. I'm not saying that it's either one.

It could actually be perfectly, absolutely flat

But the WHOLE POINT OF THE ARGUMENT IS THAT IT DOESN'T MATTER. Duh!

And even at that, an absolutely flat plot is unthinkably less likely. You're making the same exact error, because such a plot, at least big enough to build a normal house on, has probably never existed on the planet. It may have never existed in the entire universe.

If I made an error in assuming a slight curvature, you're making an even larger one in assuming one that's flat.

(moving this to the next post)

I'm not assuming the converse, Malor. That's another cognitive weakness that has been exhibited, and it seems commonplace. Just because I'm contesting your assumption that it was curved doesn't mean that I'm saying that it's perfectly flat. I'm saying that it could be. I'm not saying that it's either one.

Even if we grant you a plot that's merely fairly flat, like to normal eyeballs, as opposed to very slightly curved.... yes, such a plot could exist. But, on the whole, curved plots happen more often than flat ones do, so my pencil-sketch model is right more often than your suggested alternative is.

If it wasn't, the Earth wouldn't be round.

Exhibit A, gentlemen.

LarryC, how about you let Malor off on this one, and I'll let you off on getting the Theory of Evolution wrong, and we'll call it all just a matter of typing too fast?

And again, goddamnit, you are harping on me for saying something that wasn't true, when I was very explicitly saying that it wasn't true!

Larry, are you even able to have an argument where you aren't busily proving that you're the smartest guy in the room? Even to the point of completely misunderstanding the purpose of the other person's arguments?

For someone trying to prove himself smarter than the other people in the argument, you are doing an extraordinarily poor job.

CheezePavilion:

I'm not trying to insult Malor here or anything. I'm referring to him as a case-in-point for the thread topic. In fact, his statements so far have been remarkably to-the-point in demonstrating elements of the original article in the OP.

By the by, if you could point out and correct my error in ToE, I'd be obliged.

Malor:

And again, goddamnit, you are harping on me for saying something that wasn't true, when I was very explicitly saying that it wasn't true!

Let's be perfectly clear. I'm not harping on you for this. Absolutely not. Completely, absolutely, perfectly not. I'm not harping on you in the specific at all; it's just convenient. If you prefer, I'll quote the relevant statements without referring to you whatsoever, and let's pretend they're generic statements taken from the 'net.

LarryC wrote:

CheezePavilion:

I'm not trying to insult Malor here or anything. I'm referring to him as a case-in-point for the thread topic. In fact, his statements so far have been remarkably to-the-point in demonstrating elements of the original article in the OP.

By the by, if you could point out and correct my error in ToE, I'd be obliged.

"In ToE, evolution is a constant process of organisms adapting to a constantly changing environment." Evolution is the constant process of organisms changing; adaption is part of one one of the mechanisms of evolution (natural selection), but not the only one (e.g. genetic drift).

Ah, correct. I stand corrected on that. It is as you say.

edit: nevermind, this doesn't belong here.

LarryC wrote:

True in the Ideal Reality rationalist sense.

Rationalism doesn't requires that there are immutable Ideal truths, merely that knowledge (whatever it may be) comes to us principally through deductive processes. And most Scientific theories and models are held to be contingently true, that they could be falsifiable but for now are a best descriptor. Typically things are regarded as "true" given some calculable likelihood that they may be wrong or that the model lies within some given error rate. That's a very different kind of truth than some universal objective truth. You can be a rationalist and use deductive reasoning even when points of knowledge are contingent.

If we don't believe models might be telling us something about some real world process (beyond the simple observations of facts) how are you going to make new predictions or even new hypotheses? What should you then make of predictions that are correct? Especially predictions whose error rate is inconceivably small? Are such models really an overreach from some initial empirical set of observation or is the model actually describing some real process? If you measure the flatness of 1,000 places on the earth is the best that you can say that those 1,000 places are flat? Can you not also use those observations to deduce the likelihood that the earth is flat?

Completely as an aside, when it comes to measuring "flatness" using spirit levels (or plumb lines) they work consistently everywhere on earth because the earth is spheroid (and hence has curvature).

DanB:

If scientific models are a provisional truth, does it not follow that there is an objective ultimate truth that is being strived for? This is inescapable to me from a rationalist perspective.

If we don't believe models might be telling us something about some real world process (beyond the simple observations of facts) how are you going to make new predictions or even new hypotheses? What should you then make of predictions that are correct? Especially predictions whose error rate is inconceivably small? Are such models really an overreach from some initial empirical set of observation or is the model actually describing some real process?

I think we've already been over this.

Good grief. This thread has gotten crazy.

It's enough to drive a guy to Bible literalism, I tell ya!

LarryC wrote:

DanB:

If scientific models are a provisional truth, does it not follow that there is an objective ultimate truth that is being strived for? This is inescapable to me from a rationalist perspective.

I think we've already been over this.

Now we're getting into philosophy.

Reality has a lot of parallax, just because our brains are neither perfect nor deterministic. You're just not going to get away from that. Science is a good try at getting arbitrarily close, but eventually, it's all going to be filtered through the noisy, lossy filter we call a brain.

LarryC wrote:

DanB:

If scientific models are a provisional truth, does it not follow that there is an objective ultimate truth that is being strived for? This is inescapable to me from a rationalist perspective.

Well I used contingent and not provisional because I think human "truths" are dependent on their existence to many interrelated factors and not that they are required to be superseded. An empirical observation is contingent on you believing your senses don't lie, understanding the assumptions built in to your instrumentation etc... Nevertheless Philosophical rationalism merely asserts that human knowledge comes only via deduction. Whether there are or are not objective truths is neither here nor there and I'm sure plenty of rationalist would reject the notion that there are.

Personally, I don't think that it's logically necessary that there exists an objective truth in order for people to assert that some fact (or model) is true. After all the set of all things we could assert as true is much larger than the set of all things that are actually true.

That said I do think there is an objectively real universe that does exist, which is independent of my observation. And I don't think it makes sense to regard the universe itself as true or false. Human statements about the universe (say individual declarative statements, models or observations) can probably all be classified as true or false. I suspect subjective beings like ourselves are strictly excluded from being able to absolutely verify if any given statement is indeed true or false. That said I think we are able to use maths and stats to estimate the likelihood that hypotheses (or models) are good descriptors. And we have managed to make some descriptors that are so good I suspect that they are indistinguishable from true statements about the universe. Such as the weights of most subatomic particles, the einstein field equations, quantum electro-dyanmics...

That said I do think there is an objectively real universe that does exist, which is independent of my observation.

This is demonstrated every time someone dies.

That said I do think there is an objectively real universe that does exist, which is independent of my observation.

This is demonstrated every time someone dies.

Robear wrote:
That said I do think there is an objectively real universe that does exist, which is independent of my observation.

This is demonstrated every time someone dies. :-)

I don't know that, you might all blink out of existance when I pass away

DanB wrote:
Robear wrote:
That said I do think there is an objectively real universe that does exist, which is independent of my observation.

This is demonstrated every time someone dies. :-)

I don't know that, you might all blink out of existance when I pass away ;)

I worry that I am a figment of your imagination. That means you're a very, very sick individual!

Also, every time Robear does the naughty dance, it's because *you* made him!

You said you'd never talk about that, Douae! Sob! And it turns out it wasn't even my fault!