Value of evidence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk7jHJRSzhM

Sam Harris asks an interesting question. "If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that you should value it"

My personal opinion is that most people do value evidence, but only so far as it supports their world view. They will dismiss evidence that conflicts with their view*.  The key here is to shape the ideas to fit into their preconceptions or to forcibly annihilate those preconceptions. If you wish to offer an argument it seems like a good idea to start with premises that the other parties can accept. If they reject your premises they have no reason even to listen to your argument.  IFF they accept your premises and they reject your valid argument from those premises then you no longer need consider them a rational participant in the discussion.

Caution should be used here, and you should listen to the critiques that they offer of your argument. A refusal to listen to the critique or a disagreement over the consequences of certain ideas being true, is not a good reason for ending a discussion.  Accusations of irrationality can fly in heated debate, and it is important to remain calm and only make claims that are grounded in evidence. Making assessments of the other persons rationality, intelligence, or motives can border on personal attacks and should be avoided. It is only when they abandon the willingness to either commit to their own ideas and the outcomes of them, or listen to any offer of alternate explanation with either an equal or better fit to the facts at hand that you can say that they behave irrationally from evidence and not from personal feelings.



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*This isn't exactly valuing evidence it is succumbing to confirmation bias, but there is a wedge strategy that can be employed, and so I didn't want to distract from my next point.

Lying and Truth

Lying vs Honesty vs facts:

Lying is intent to convey falsehood whether through action or inaction

Honesty is an intent to convey facts through action.

These are both irrespective of the actual facts.  Someone could lie and convey factual information if they are misinformed. and the reverse is also true.  Propagating a falsehood is the putting forward of false information, whether or not you know it's actual truth value. 

There are four states: 

You are conveying True information and believe that you are conveying True information This is Honesty (and  being correct)

You are conveying True information and believe you are conveying False information This is Lying and being misinformed (and unlikely)

You are conveying False information and believe that you are conveying False information This is lying (and being correct)

You are conveying False information and believe that you are conveying True information This is Honesty and being misinformed

       Note that these states really have two features. One refers to the state of reality the other to the state of someones belief about the nature of reality. I don't want* to get into a long diatribe about the values and reasons for considering an objective reality to be true.  So basically something can either be true or false, but you can also believe it to be true or false** And it is how we act on our beliefs that reflect whether we are lying or not lying, but it is how what we say reflects reality that determines if we are telling the truth or not. (not lying or ~lying)   

      Now there are ways of telling if someone is lying, that have various degrees of reliability from some to none.  But there are certain techniques for getting at the truth that are very thorough. And while it is a good idea to know something about the art and science of deception. It is a simpler and worthier practice to learn how to find the truth regardless of the opinions of others.  These methods are the various types of formal and informal reasoning of which logic is the main branch.  Logic itself can only deal with the way ideas are structured and requires information and knowledge to be used well.  Further discussion of these ideas is beyond the scope of this essay and will be covered elsewhere.

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*Well, I want to but I wont here.

** You can also hold the following beliefs, although they are very difficult to do and we typically have an opinion even if we don't admit it.  that something is unknown*** (insufficient data)  , that something is unknowable (called agnosticism) or Fuck All, Who cares, let's go to the pub (known as indifference).

*** There is of course that famous Rumsfeld quote that sums up the various states of knowledge; Which for some reason people find amusing when it is actually quite astute:      "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

"Argument: A Field Guide in Six Parts" via Derren Brown

Derren Brown is a fantastic Magician.  He is following int he tradition of Houdini and Randi by providing tools to better evaluate claims.   These videos are available on his site.  You should check it out.


Great short video series on critical thinking: "Argument: A Field Guide in Six Parts"

Unstated premises

Trains of thought number two.  Where I see how much use and sense my free form notes written on a train ride make.

In most statements there are supporting ideas that are never directly addressed. These are called unstated premises. When we evaluate truth. Maims we should be aware that there may be certain intermediary steps or fundamental ideas that are not explicit in the argument. It is a good exercise to determine what these are, or might be. If an unstated premise conflicts with any of the stated premises it should be used as a consistency test and if found to not be a necessary condition ignored. If the premises as stated are insufficient the arguer must either state additional premises, restructure the argument, or abandon their rational claim. Premises that are left unstated should only be done so in a formal situation if the argument would be needlessly cluttered by them, or If they are not required for a particular section of the argument ( and will be stated later). In informal argument premises may be left unstated if they are thought to be implicit, for elegance, brevity, or simplicity. If an argument is. Challenged on grounds of insufficient evidence, then unstated premises may be brought to bear.

Is it Reasonable?

Some of my friends have been claiming things.  I made this website for them really.  These claims range from the supernatural to the extraterrestrial, they include government conspiracies, diet, and medicinal advice. They include positions on politics, and science; on which news sources are best, and which can't be trusted.  These are people I like and care for.  They believe these things, and want me to believe them too.

I think they are wrong.  Not just a little bit, but as wrong as you can be.  Could they be right?  Sure. Are they?  Nope. Pretty sure they aren't.  It may seem confrontational to say that, which is what I want. I want to confront the beliefs my friends hold that I disagree with.  They think they're right and I think that I'm right, so where does that leave us?

The most important thing about my view point is that it is evidence based.  And with that comes the responsibility of changing beliefs to match the evidence.    I tried to sum this up into the following statement:

If you don't know what it would take to change your mind; then you don't know why you believe it.  If you don't know why you believe it, then you have abandoned the rational.  To quote Plato quoting Socrates (probably)  "The unexamined life is not worth living"

With that in mind I will now take to examining the beliefs put toward me by my friends and what it would take for me to accept those things.   I will then examine their evidence and adjust my beliefs accordingly.   I will ask them to do the same, if I find their worldview lacking and present a deconstruction or alternative.

I have already begun the work here in my series On the Nature of Discourse and Argument.  And I would like to think of that as supplemental to the conversations I wish to have, they are the tools that I will use to support my specific ideas.

The importance of specifics cannot be stressed enough.  Too often I have found myself in conversation where when I challenge any single idea or single part of an idea, I am told that that part doesn't matter or they personally don't believe that part.  I will do my best to break ideas down into the premises which are necessary and the conclusions that are deductive or highly likely if inductive.  This is where I start.

Re: Arguments for the existance of god

Here is a collection and my responses to various arguments for deism or theism.  Often we are asked to not only disprove or refute the ideas being presented but are held to the requirement of offering some replacement explanation.  While I enjoy the challenge of coming up with a rational consistent worldview based on the facts at hand, this simply misses the point.  Atheism is by definition a null hypothesis, this means it is the assertion that the idea put forward is not true.  It need only demonstrate that sufficient evidence has not been presented to accept the arguments and their conclusions or that the arguments are fallacies.  That is what I seek to do here.  My own ideas about origin and purpose will have to wait, though they will likely be touched upon.

The Main Premises:

None of the claims are very good.  You cannot move from one claim to another via deduction or induction.  The claims are both independent (they do not reference each other) yet interdependent in the way they are thought to provide proof.  The claims all assume a definition (or definitions) of god without giving reasons for those definitions or explicitly stating them.

The Specific Arguments:

Please note that I am ignoring and young earth anti evolution arguments; they are not the point of this post nor as interesting philosophically as the ones I am choosing to discuss.  I would happily cover that subject in another post at some point, or possibly just direct people to other sources (more likely).

Cosmological- The Prime Mover

What happened before time?  Where was space before the big bang?  These questions and those like them cannot be answered with our current understanding of physics.  They may not have a sensible answer.  There is a point before which we can say or see nothing. I think it is safe to say "we don't know" and if you want to say "ah well I know..." and wink knowingly at Jesus or Thor, over the shoulders of ALL OF PHYSICS, then you are going to have to show your work.   The main argument is There is no thing which is un-caused, this assertion seems to make sense until you realize that it A) begs the question and B) relates to things in time and space rather than time and space itself.  Can the term "cause" have any meaning outside of the idea of time?



Teleological- the argument from design. Paley's watch.   Darwin starts our path here, after that we can begin to view another method.  I wont bother referencing poor design, or cruel or petty (there might be gods that fit that)   IMPORTANT  an over-arching order is not the same as god.

The second part  is the anthropic principle in reverse; Here is often employed even more physics references and a misunderstanding of certain probabilities. Of course the anthropic principle suggests the first proper answer to this idea.  If you want to talk about probabilities I will need you to show the numbers you are using as well as how you came by them and the equations.

Ontological - (not ornithological but there is a joke there somehow I'm sure)  Anslem's conception as I have heard it stated is a non sequitur.  "Imagine the most perfect being. It would be more perfect if it existed. Therefore it exists"

There also seems to be an inherent Platonism, with god as the ideal ideal,  which I question on more basic grounds.  This is often tied to an assertion that Math and Logic exceed the physical universe (and therefore precede it?) to which; for now one can only say "incompleteness theorem"

From Morality -  This is typically stated that without god there is no basis for morality.  The emphasis is on god as an idea and not a specific deity.   This argument is fallacious for a few reasons.  1 it is an Appeal to Authority  2 it posits that god is the source of morality which is part of the definition given (circular reasoning) 3 Basically the argument from evil in reverse without specific conception of god. (the argument from evil is only to rule out a specific type of god -loving, all knowing and all powerful)

From Faith - not really a relevant argument from evidence please stop it.

From Scripture - (revelation) Well this is the leap from theism to religion.It relies on specific texts to be true.  These are not as spurious as the from faith argument but are beyond the scope of this essay and will be addressed separately.

From History - This is always a specific idea to support a specific religion.  I plan to look specifically at the resurrection claims about Jesus as most of my sources are Christian apologists.  Any links to other historical claims are welcome)

My sources for the original pro arguments against which I argue.

Hitchens Vs Craig
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KBx4vvlbZ8

Hitches Vs Turek
http://vimeo.com/1904911

Hitchens Vs Boteach  (actually doesn't believe in evolution)  Mainly failing at the math and argument from incredulity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnMYL8sF7bQ

Hitchens Vs Mcgrath
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U1b7Xgyq-Y

Hitchens Vs D'Souza (some interesting ideas couched in logical fallacies)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V85OykSDT8


Additional Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God#Arguments_for_the_existence_of_God

Mentions Historical Resurrection (does not give actual sources they must be acquired)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpp37iJogFI&feature=related

The nature of discourse and argument Part 4

This should be able to stand alone, but you may want to check out parts one, two and three.

I decided to talk about some more of the thinking errors called fallacies; not because they are the most important thing, but because they are both a common impediment to good reasoning and easy to sum up. This does not mean that they are easy to spot, or to stop. Just that they are simple to explain and learning to avoid any or all of them will immediately lead to better thinking in a noticeable way.  Learning the rules of good thinking that could help you avoid all fallacies, including those I am not going to list, is a longer if  even more worthwhile process which will not be covered in this post.  Instead this post is going to focus on some specific problems often found in direct debate or discussion particularly when it comes to politics, religion, and other belief systems.

The nature of discource and argument Part3

On Ignorance. 

In the previous post of this series. I mentioned the appeal to ignorance.   I would like to expand on the following text from it,

-----Ignorance  (which is a lack of knowledge or information on a subject) and it's admission are important for truth seekers.  This appeal, dismisses ignorance as a credible state or uses it as a wedge.  The basic form is as follows;  "You can't prove bigfoot doesn't exist therefore bigfoot exists."   This is often an attempt to flip the burden of proof onto someone requesting evidence.-----

My reply to the appeal to ignorance goes something like this: Just because I admit that I don't know something does not mean that I accept that you do know, or that the subject is unknowable.  These are three distinct states of being the first two being completely independent of each other, and both being dependent on the last.  But I really want to talk about ignorance in a more general sense.

The nature of discourse and argument Part 2

           The point of today's post is common mistakes made in arguments.  Again the definition of argument I am using is the formal one, of putting forth reasons, not the common one of having a disagreement.  The two main types of mistakes made are having bad starting information, or premises, and making a bad inference or connection between two or more points of information, called fallacies. The end claims made in fallacious arguments are not always false, we are currently only going over evaluation of claims as given, and not setting up and understanding requirements for truth value when claims are either not given or lacking in some way.   With that in mind let's talk about a few common fallacies in a group called Appeals.     

The nature of discourse and argument Part 1

The term argument leads a double life. In common usage it means to fight about or to disagree, usually loudly, and sometimes with thrown objects. However in the formal sense of logic it means the discussion or addressing of a topic. Now these should be easily distinguished; I am having an argument with my wife versus the argument is lacking in rigor. But for the sake of ease in reading, I will use argument in the logical sense only and use disagreement or fight for the other while writing this post, and most probably this blog.