If this is a correct belief, why should only Christians believe it?
Yeah, if that were correct, everyone should believe it. But some YECs would say that you canāt realize that without becoming Christian first. Thatās why YECs seek to evangelize people to become Christians (and YECs), in order to adopt the same epistemology.
I thought it was the other way around: you canāt become Christian without realizing that first.
Well, some āscientificā YECs (who insist that the evidence points the other way) would agree with you, saying that arguments for YEC are one of the best ways to convince people to believe in the Bible and become Christian. But others (such as Todd Wood and probably Hans Madueme, based on his writings) would say that you need to become a Christian first on other grounds and then youāll get access to the āreal truthā.
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I guess the answer would be: The only people whoād believe would be Christians, by definition.
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Ahh yes I recognize that kind of one-way epistemology. Once you adopt it, youāve made it impossible to discover whether youāre wrong. Thatās of course the foundational fallacy of an epistemology that puts a conclusion over and above both the method and the evidence.
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Iām not a YEC, but your criticism can be leveled at any epistemology. Even a epistemology that prioritizes the scientific method must assume that we are cognitively able to recognize our biases and errors by careful analysis and empirical investigation. In this sense, all epistemologies have a set of basic beliefs that the system is built upon and cannot be disproven āfrom the insideā.
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Sure but thereās a difference between taking a method as an axiom(like assuming reason, or the reliability of your senses), versus taking a particular thingās existence(or non-existence) as an axiom.
To see how silly the presuppositionalist enterprise is, just try to invert the axioms. Assume that God doesnāt exist, that revelation is impossible, and that all evidence necessarily contradicts scripture. It seems to me this is obviously question-begging and in the same way and for the same reasons YEC presuppositionalism is.
It seems to me one should try to operate on a sort of principle of modesty. Assume as few and as simple things as absolutely possible, just enough to allow you to gain knowledge, and then let the evidence you collect guide you to whatever conclusions it happens to support. That way you allow evidence to show you whether (for example) God exists or not(youāve not closed yourself off to this possibility just by assuming you can gain information through your senses, and make sense of it with your mind), and youāve made it possible for you for new evidence to change earlier and possibly premature conclusions. And donāt allow yourself to get into these sorts of hermetically sealed bubbles where you close yourself off to new information that might lead in a different direction.
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Iām not convinced that this definition is non-circular. What is āknowledgeā? āKnowledgeā is the very thing weāre trying to define a methodology for, so why include it in our definition?
Iām not defining knowledge there, Iām explaining what I mean by epistemological modesty and why I think this is preferable to the presuppositionalist alternative. For a definition of knowledge you can use: Beliefs supported by evidence.
Thatās a strange question, just like this one: Ā« If evolution is a correct belief, why should only evolutionists believe it Ā»
Letās rephrase: If evolution is a correct belief, why should only those who are already evolutionists believe it? If YEC is a correct belief, why should only those who are already YECs believe it?
If people only held correct beliefs, everyone would be evolutionists, and no one would be YECās.
Which I suppose is the point.
Did you forget than John Sanford was an atheist evolutionist before he became a YEC?
You appear to have misunderstood my point. Rather than painfully explain it again, I suggest you start reading at the top of the thread.
Well this exchange was quite fruitful. What did you think?
It was interesting to hear Axe basically (but not explicitly) toss out experimental science. The appeal to (inappropriate) analogy takes center stage. Purposefully-arranged parts and all that.
I am reminded of Neil Diamond (or maybe it was Bruce Lee?) - āDonāt think, feelā¦ā
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It was also interesting to hear him appeal to SETI (which we recently discussed: Is SETI Science? and Science Design Inferences are Unlike ID), and then note that he was āgoing beyondā their methodology. But still using the same methodology?
One more comment. When I discuss neutral theory with my students, I frame the issue as one of allowing, ne demanding, equal consideration of two opposing hypotheses when asking about the origins of features in biology. Natural selection is one, and students see this easily (usually reflexively). To help them better grasp the power of neutral evolution, I have them pose tests of the hypothesis āsuch-and-such a feature arose via neutral evolutionā. For example, the shape of an Arabidopsis leaf is the product of neutral evolution, NOT natural selection. This pushes students in unexpected directions and really gets the point across. And, truth be told, it generates lots of push-back.
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Wow. Can you point me in the direction of some papers on this?
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