Creationism is a mental illness (Page 104)

theHating:

AchillesSinatra: "Hitchens's razor is an epistemological razor asserting that the burden of proof regarding the truthfulness of a claim lies with the one who makes the claim; if this burden is not met, then the claim is unfounded, and its opponents need not argue further in order to dismiss it.

The concept, named after journalist, author, and avowed atheist Christopher Hitchens, echoes Occam's razor. The dictum appears in Hitchens's 2007 book titled God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. It takes a stronger stance than the Sagan standard ("Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" ), instead applying to even non-extraordinary claims."

- Wiki




@ TheHating

In my previous post, I treated Hitchens' razor as an assertive sentence or statement, i.e., a sentence that is evaluable for truth/falsity,and found it to be either false, or if true, self-refuting. (i.e. false either way)

Presumably your latest post implies you feel it should be treated as a heuristic. This seems a reasonable enough interpretation to me.

Now, heuristics, in the sense relevant to us here, are like rules of thumb. Unlike statements which purport to tell us what is, or what is not, the case, rules purport to tell us what we ought, or ought not, to do. Rules, unlike statements, are not "truth evaluable"; they're not the kinds of beasts to which the predicates "true" and "false" apply.

So far so good.


The problem is, however, treated as a heuristic, at least as characterized above, Hitchens' razor turns out to be a pretty lousy guide to getting through life.

I'd point first to the age-old (though somewhat disputed) distinction between so-called "analytic" and "synthetic" statements.

The former, when true, are purportedly truths of language, not the way the world is, thus the question of evidence does not even arise.

Consider, for example, the statement : "A vixen is a female fox" or "Triangles have three sides".

To the poor sod who demands evidence, or appeals to the burden of proof, one can only refer him to a dictionary, or perhaps a psychiatrist.

(In passing, I'd note that to the class of analytic statements, I'd personally add the "theory" of natural selection, roughly "those most able to survive and reproduce successfully tend to survive and reproduce successfully" )


Turning now to the class of synthetic statements to which, unlike analytic statements, evidence can be brought to bear.

Well, YOU try going through your day today in accordance with Hitchens' razor (with one eye on the Wiki characterization thereof at the top of this post) and dismissing every assertion made to you without accompanying evidence...


"Where's the toilet?" - TheHating

"It's at the end of the hall and to the left"

"Your assertion was made with no evidence. I hereby dismiss it without evidence " - TheHating



Later, at a party...

"Hi. My name is TheHating. What's yours?"

"My name is Paul"

"The burden of proof regarding the truthfulness of a claim lies with the one who makes the claim; if this burden is not met, then the claim is unfounded, and its opponents need not argue further in order to dismiss it. "



Have a nice day!


Clearly, if Hitchens' razor is to be taken seriously as a heuristic, some further elaboration is required.

I'm not saying (yet) this can't be done. According to your own razor, though, the burden to do so lies with yourself; viz.

"I hereby assert Hitchens' razor is a useful heuristic" - TheHating

"Ok. Let's see your evidence" - me

AchillesSinatra: @ TheHating

Lest I be misconstrued, there is no ridicule intended in my post above. Hitchens' razor is clearly inadequate as it stands (assuming Wiki has characterized it faithfully). In the vast majority of quotidian cases, we do not demand evidence to support assertions made to us.

But I would be interested to see if you can come up with a more adequate characterization.

If you do decide to pursue this, though, what I'm afraid we'll end up with is yet another unhelpful truism of the form:

"Those claims which ought to be accompanied by supporting evidence ought to be accompanied by supporting evidence".

AchillesSinatra: Suppose, for example, you were to restrict Hitchens' razor to only scientific claims (even assuming we can agree on criteria to demarcate scientific from non-scientific claims).

Then non-scientific (e.g. religious) claims may be asserted with no supporting evidence.


Suppose, following Carl Sagan, we demand only that evidence be adduced to support "extraordinary" claims.

Well, we'd need to be a little more specific about what "extraordinary" means.


See the prob?

theHating: Nope.

theHating: Well, yes, and no..

edvis: https://www.worldbibleschool.net/about/

theHating: @achilles i challenge you to produce an empirically equivalent theory to evolution.

chronology: Achilles. It is difficult. While researching UFOs for Project Blue Book the U.S. Army Team were often debating about what was proof of a UFO.

On one occasion they had a dozen witnesses on the ground who had witnessed a UFO, Air Traffic Controller who had tracked the same UFO, an U.S. Fighter Pilot who chased the UFO, but the Team still were reluctant to record the sighting as 'proof' . They felt that witnesses alone without any other supporting evidence was unsatisfactory.

AchillesSinatra: "@achilles i challenge you to produce an empirically equivalent theory to evolution" - TheHating


I'm going to ignore numerous technical complications here -- not least of which being no one seems able to tell me what THE theory of evolution is (here's a hint: there's no such thing) -- and just reply "I can't!

Now, the fact that I'm unable to produce an empirically equivalent theory does nothing whatsoever, of course, to show that there are none lurking out there (presumably as yet unthought of).

Thus, anyone wishing to claim the ToE -- or any other theory -- has been proven to be true would be obliged not only to demonstrate that the theory is empirically adequate (i.e. yields only true consequences), but also that there are no empirically equivalent rivals (i.e. no other theory yields the same set of true observable consequences).

I'm not the fellah making the claim.

theHating: I only need to here ya say, "I can't".

AchillesSinatra: The thesis of "underdetermination of theories by evidence" -- namely, that a plurality of theories may be compatible with a given body of evidence -- is not remotely controversial.

Real world examples abound. Ask and ye shall be provided.

What's controversial is how far it should be taken.

AchillesSinatra: @ TheHating

Do you consider it a weakness of the position you defend (i.e. The Theory of Evolution) that you are unable to articulate it?

Strikes me as a fairly major failing.

theHating: I dont consider it a weakness of my position. Allow me to concede to your disembodied pretenses and just say that my inability to articulate science does not reflect the likelihood of experts being wrong or premature in their conclusions.

AchillesSinatra: "What's controversial is how far it should be taken." - me


To be more clear, a very weak version of the underdetermination thesis would look something like this:

"Some theories have an empirically equivalent rival"

This is already known to be true.

The strongest version might say....

"ALL theories have an INFINITE number of empirically equivalent rivals"

AchillesSinatra: "I dont consider it a weakness of my position. Allow me to concede to your disembodied pretenses and just say that my inability to articulate science does not reflect the likelihood of experts being wrong or premature in their conclusions."


I never asked you to "articulate science" (whatever THAT means )

It does strike me, though, as quite perverse that you are so adamant in defending a certain position, X say, but cannot tell us what X is.

AchillesSinatra: P.S. You're not alone.

See every other ToE loonie around here

AchillesSinatra: Your position, for now at least, is EXACTLY the same as the fellah who claims:

"I firmly believe in clodguns"

"Er, what are clodguns?" - me

"I've no idea, but I firmly believe in them"

theHating: Lol not at all.

AchillesSinatra: Well, here's your big chance:

Please articulate "the theory of evolution" that you defend with unholy fervor, and condemn anyone who does not share your fervor.

theHating: What is with your "and" parenthetical?

AchillesSinatra: You present the image of a person who values reason and logic.

Right now, you exhibit neither.

Can you articulate your stance or not?

AchillesSinatra: Your redoubtable interlocutor, vphaxg (another thread), doesn't seem very bright, to put it mildly.

I see more in you.

theHating: Okay... Letting this play out, here is when I say, "the theory of evolution is the process of change in a species by natural selection, based on the idea that species share a common ancestor or origin. "

AchillesSinatra: Well, it's a start. Thanks!

But I know of no evolutionary biologist who holds that natural selection is the only force at work shaping evolution.

Do you?