I see no reason why I would have to agree beforehand that anything you present will be accepted as evidence no matter what. More to the point, if you had reasonable evidence you wouldn’t have to preface it in such a fashion.
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Wouldn’t it be fairer, if that’s a theme in the written works, to say that it is a story that the Bible purports to tell? The notion that observing the evil represented by the OT genocides is “not being faithful” to the text seems bizarre to me – surely one must exercise moral judgment about such matters, and surely there is no possible way of calling such things “good” without perverting the whole idea of what “good” means (e.g., by using divine command as a substitute for morality). I don’t see any way to be faithful to the text without calling those episodes evil, because faithfulness to the text calls for being honest about what we see, not for agreeing with the views of those who wrote it.
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Well, I’m less concerned with “my argument” than with the evidence. Experience teaches that those who think there is good empirical evidence for that particular point are usually horrible judges of the relevance and competence of evidence. The fact that you sent me a video presentation of David Duke (played by Stephen Meyer), Professor Erwin Corey (played by David Berlinski) and Dr. Marvin Monroe (played by David Gelernter) because you found it particularly worthwhile suggests to me that your judgment of the relevance and competence of evidence may be in that range.
Alas, I can’t choose. I can’t choose whether to make the “evidence” you offer relevant or competent on the points on which it is offered. All I can do is subject it to reasoned scrutiny and see what that looks like. You should try that sometime.
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Is there an objective criteria for evidence that people can agree too? Does it depend on fit to a specific hypothesis?
With out this we get into the game of subjective denial.
First, you need to cite objective facts, not opinions. This means they need to be empirical and verifiable. Second, you need a falsifiable hypothesis. If any fact could support the hypothesis then no facts can be evidence. Third, we are looking for positive evidence for the claim, not just lack of evidence for other competing claims (i.e. God of the Gaps).
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You appear to be going beyond a definition of evidence here. Falsifiability is a paradigm used by some in scientific reasoning and is not part of a general definition of evidence.
A worldview that is objectively true will fall into this category eventually by definition.
Falsifiability is a key part of the definition of a scientific hypotheses. A hypothesis must be testable, meaning that (at least in theory) it should be possible to find evidence to disprove a hypothesis.
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That is completely false.
You are just flat out wrong. Evidence is a set of facts that can prove or disprove a claim. Falsifiability is inherent in the definition of evidence.
That is a meaningless statement.
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Are you aware of the history of the introduction of falsifiability into science? The use of evidence existed long before this concept.
The concept of falsifiability existed prior to the modern scientific method.
If I said that no fact you could ever present to me would convince me the world is a globe, could I then turn around and say that the Sun setting behind the horizon is evidence for the world being flat? Could I even claim that there was evidence for the world being flat if I had already stated that no fact could ever falsify my claim of the world being flat?
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I’d have to disagree. Falsifiability and proof/disproof are incompatible with any statistical approach to hypothesis testing. I’d say rather that evidence can fit a claim to a greater or lesser degree, making it more or less likely to be true (or true-ish), and in particular one may test multiple hypotheses against each other using evidence, as with likelihood ratios. Still, no proof, no falsification. Just probabilities given evidence.
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Y’all seem to have fallen for colewd’s technique for never providing any evidence. Again.
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Beg pardon?
I am using the colloquial definition which is “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”, and this same language is used in scientific publications. The same would apply to falsifying a hypothesis which is when the statistical tests support the null hypothesis.
I see lots of diversion into discussion of the nature of evidence, but no evidence. @colewd has once again managed to avoid presenting any of the evidence he claims to have.
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I mean it’s the same argument, in form, as Behe makes, but less technical and precise. It’s the photocopy-of-a-photocopy version of the argument. Which is why I got bored and stopped participating in this particular discussion.
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Hey, I wasn’t even talking to Bill. That would be pointless.
Has Bill claimed to have evidence? It is not clear to me that he has.
I’ve known that for years.
I honestly don’t see any more precision in Behe’s arguments. Just more precisely biological lingo.
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