Tuesday, February 14, 2012
More Discussion Of The End Of Infidelity, Including Comments From John Loftus
Late last week, I linked to a thread at TheologyWeb in which The End Of Infidelity was being discussed. For those who are interested, the discussion is still going on, and John Loftus has been posting there. There's also been some discussion of paranormal phenomena in the modern world, mostly the Eusapia Palladino case, but some other examples have been brought up as well. You can read the thread here.
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Loftus' claim to fame rests on his "deconversion" story, which, in WIBA he says was due to THREE MAIN REASONS, two of which were, by his own admission, emotional.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet in his new edition of WIBA...I have access to an advance reading copy...he give ONE NEW REASON, in effect trying to change and pump up the story.
This is relevant because he keeps talking about his "cumulative case"...but if you derail the reasons he originally gave for his devonversion you have derailed the "cumulative case".
Thanks for the link, it's hilarious. Defending a medium who was constantly caught cheating as an example of the paranormal shows how useless reason is with some people in the face of really really wanting to believe in something.
ReplyDeleteCoulda sworn Jason already pre-empted that objection.
ReplyDeleteYou may call that pre-emption, rho. I prefer to call it gullibility. I demand higher standards for accounts of stuff that defies common sense and science. What about Elvis sightings- surely, they can't all be mistaken?
ReplyDeleteYou haven't interacted with JasonTE's argument. You're just poo-poohing it and referring to a disanalogy as your excuse.
ReplyDeleteC'mon, rho, are you saying that this old fraud proves the existence of a supernatural plane?
ReplyDeleteI'm saying your dismissal didn't interact with JasonTE's argument.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you need to realize that the supernatural is not just 99% fraud, but 100%?
ReplyDeleteActually interacting with what JasonTE said would be a good start.
ReplyDeleteEr, where is interaction possible, rho? Do you expect me to prove that this old fraud was not occasionally inspired by God, or the Devil? You have a funny idea of the way "proof" works....
ReplyDeleteBegging the question that all of the cited instances were fraudulent.
ReplyDeleteWhy does zilch rely on others to do his legwork? I'm guessing it has to do with his high standards of proof.
ReplyDeleteZilch,
ReplyDeleteHave you read Braude's work, The Gold Leaf Lady. I'm curious as to your thoughts on her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0Lt15DKw5k
Zilch,
ReplyDeleteYou're repeating an objection I answered in the thread I linked. Not only is it incompetent and dishonest for you to ignore counterarguments you've already been given, but it's also hypocritical of you to accept my argument in other contexts. Do you deny, for example, that we can have sufficient evidence of an athlete's skill at a sport in spite of his having cheated at that sport? Do you assume that John Loftus is always lying or always being unfaithful to his wife, for instance, since he did such things in the past?
Then there's the fact that you're ignoring the other paranormal phenomena I cited. Even if we assumed, for the sake of argument, that all of Palladino's phenomena were fraudulent, how would you explain the other cases I mentioned?
Zilch wrote:
ReplyDelete"I demand higher standards for accounts of stuff that defies common sense and science."
Given that naturalists are only a tiny minority of the world's population, why should we think that purportedly miraculous events "defy common sense"?
And how do miracles "defy science" in any relevant way? A human can interfere with the normal course of gravity by reaching his hand out and catching a falling object. Similarly, a scientific observation that tables don't levitate on their own, or don't levitate under a variety of circumstances involving other entities, doesn't prove that there's no entity that can make a table levitate. The unlikelihood of a table's levitation by means of known scientific principles doesn't tell us the likelihood that a table will levitate, unless you know that naturalism is true. If you want us to evaluate these issues within the framework of naturalism, then you need to make a case for naturalism. You haven't done that.
What about the anti-common-sense and anti-science implications of your own position? Do you think all of the strict controls that Palladino operated under during the seances in question failed? How does it strike the average person's common sense to suggest that Palladino simultaneously deceived multiple skeptics trying to debunk her in hundreds of instances, with such impressive phenomena? Why don't you give us an explanation, consistent with common sense and science, of how Palladino accomplished what she did? I'm not asking for the sort of vague generalizations you've given us so far. I want a common sense, scientific explanation of the details.
Begging the question that all of the cited instances were fraudulent.
ReplyDeleteYes, but that's my default position, rho. What's yours? If I tell you I've got a dragon in my basement, and that thirty people have witnessed it, do think "maybe zilch really has a dragon in his basement"? The fact that Conan Doyle was cited as one of the witnesses of levitation does not inspire confidence in the qualifications of the other witnesses- Doyle was also taken in by the Cottingley Fairies.
People who earn their living from doing tricks get amazingly good at it. Like probably many of you, I had a phase in my youth when I learned magic tricks, and I'm not all that easy to deceive- but over and over, I see magicians doing stuff right in front of my nose that I can't explain. Should I conclude that they have supernatural powers?
Not specified: I checked out your link. Not convincing- Uri Geller could claim pretty much the same sort of abilities. He failed miserably on the Johnny Carson show, when the entire first row of the audience consisted of professional magicians. There is a lesson in this, and also in the fact that no one has yet claimed the Randi prize, despite the fact that most miracle makers (not all) seek to profit from their "art".
And how do miracles "defy science" in any relevant way? A human can interfere with the normal course of gravity by reaching his hand out and catching a falling object. Similarly, a scientific observation that tables don't levitate on their own, or don't levitate under a variety of circumstances involving other entities, doesn't prove that there's no entity that can make a table levitate. The unlikelihood of a table's levitation by means of known scientific principles doesn't tell us the likelihood that a table will levitate, unless you know that naturalism is true. If you want us to evaluate these issues within the framework of naturalism, then you need to make a case for naturalism. You haven't done that.
What sort of "case for naturalism" are you talking about here? Of course I can't "prove" logically that the supernatural doesn't exist, or that at least some of these reported miracles are indeed supernatural; but why is burden of proof on me? The naturalistic view of the world works; it's the simplest view that explains what can be explained, so far. Supernatural causes, as you point out in the linked discussion, cannot be falsified: demons can evaporate when investigated. Very convenient.
The main problem with magical (supernatural, demonic, etc.) "explanations" is not that they are illogical, which they are not; nor that they are wrong, which they probably but not certainly are; but rather that they have no explanatory power and that they are unfalsifiable. As such, they place themselves outside the realm of science, i.e. reality-informed descriptions, and are only useful (if they are) as inspiration for fantasies.
You have to have faith, Jason and rho. Science is the only method for obtaining knowledge.
ReplyDeleteWe know this because it is falsifiable.
Very falsifiable.
ReplyDeleteZILCH SAID:
ReplyDelete"The main problem with magical (supernatural, demonic, etc.) 'explanations' is not that they are illogical, which they are not; nor that they are wrong, which they probably but not certainly are; but rather that they have no explanatory power and that they are unfalsifiable."
i) Of course they have explanatory power. Any correct explanation has explanatory power. If, in fact, a demon caused a certain phenomenon, then to say a demon was the cause is the correct explanation. Are you saying a correct explanation has no explanatory power? If the demon caused it, then that's the explanation.
ii) What makes you think it's unfalsifiable? It's a type of personal agency. Some events result from personal agents while other events result from natural forces. These are distinguishable causes.
Zilch,
ReplyDeleteThe link does not do the case justice. Braude’s book provides a more in-depth account. Braude, a professor who does not carry water for a Christian worldview and who has much to lose professionally for his views, was an eyewitness to some of the phenomena and provides a compelling account. If memory serves me correctly, Braude also speaks rather unfavorably about the integrity of Randi in the book as well.
Zilch wrote:
ReplyDelete"The fact that Conan Doyle was cited as one of the witnesses of levitation does not inspire confidence in the qualifications of the other witnesses- Doyle was also taken in by the Cottingley Fairies."
You need to address a lot more than one witness of one event. And even as far as that one witness and that one event are concerned, we'd have to ask how the likelihood that he'd be mistaken in one context compares to the likelihood that he'd be mistaken in the other. You can't just look for something to criticize in a paranormal case, ignore the remainder of the evidence, then move on.
You write:
"People who earn their living from doing tricks get amazingly good at it. Like probably many of you, I had a phase in my youth when I learned magic tricks, and I'm not all that easy to deceive- but over and over, I see magicians doing stuff right in front of my nose that I can't explain. Should I conclude that they have supernatural powers?"
I've addressed that line of argument in the TheologyWeb thread linked above.
You write:
"Not specified: I checked out your link. Not convincing- Uri Geller could claim pretty much the same sort of abilities."
Earlier, you singled out one witness in a paranormal case (Arthur Conan Doyle). Now you're resorting to citing somebody involved in a different case than the one you're supposed to be addressing.
You write:
"There is a lesson in this, and also in the fact that no one has yet claimed the Randi prize, despite the fact that most miracle makers (not all) seek to profit from their 'art'."
I don't trust Randi and his associates as judges of the paranormal. See our posts about Randi in the archives, like here.
You write:
"Of course I can't 'prove' logically that the supernatural doesn't exist, or that at least some of these reported miracles are indeed supernatural; but why is burden of proof on me?"
Because you claimed that paranormal phenomena "defy common sense and science". I'm asking you to support your claim.
You write:
"The naturalistic view of the world works; it's the simplest view that explains what can be explained, so far."
Why should we believe that?
ZILCH SAID:
ReplyDelete"Supernatural causes, as you point out in the linked discussion, cannot be falsified: demons can evaporate when investigated. Very convenient."
What's that even supposed to mean?
i) If they exist, demons are immaterial. Therefore, they don't disappear when investigated, for they were never physically present to begin with.
ii) Science routinely infers absent causes from lingering effects. The cause doesn't have to be present to infer the cause from the aftereffect.
iii) One argument for possession is if the ostensible demoniac exhibits abilities that are inexplicable if the human subject is the source.
Jason wrote:
ReplyDelete[""Not specified: I checked out your link. Not convincing- Uri Geller could claim pretty much the same sort of abilities."
Earlier, you singled out one witness in a paranormal case (Arthur Conan Doyle). Now you're resorting to citing somebody involved in a different case than the one you're supposed to be addressing."]
That's my fault. I asked him his thoughts about a different case.
Steve- I said:
ReplyDelete"The main problem with magical (supernatural, demonic, etc.) 'explanations' is not that they are illogical, which they are not; nor that they are wrong, which they probably but not certainly are; but rather that they have no explanatory power and that they are unfalsifiable."
You replied:
i) Of course they have explanatory power. Any correct explanation has explanatory power. If, in fact, a demon caused a certain phenomenon, then to say a demon was the cause is the correct explanation. Are you saying a correct explanation has no explanatory power? If the demon caused it, then that's the explanation.
ii) What makes you think it's unfalsifiable? It's a type of personal agency. Some events result from personal agents while other events result from natural forces. These are distinguishable causes.
i) For a statement to have "explanatory power" means that it must explain stuff, not merely be an assertion that may or may not be true, but doesn't enable us to make predictions about the phenomenon in question. So unless your claim "this happened because demons caused it" enables us to make better predictions about future cases, then I don't see any reason to attribute "explanatory power" to it- at least not any more than to, say, the explanation "this happened because polar bears are white".
ii) Just assertions. Can you prove that any claim for demonic activity is false? Besides, you said it yourself:
If they exist, demons are immaterial. Therefore, they don't disappear when investigated, for they were never physically present to begin with.
How do you falsify demons if they are not physically present? You do go on to say:
One argument for possession is if the ostensible demoniac exhibits abilities that are inexplicable if the human subject is the source.
Are you, or is any, human being absolutely impervious to trickery? Can you explain every magician's trick you see? If you can't, does it count as "inexplicable" on naturalism? If not, why not?
Not specified, you say:
Braude, a professor who does not carry water for a Christian worldview and who has much to lose professionally for his views, was an eyewitness to some of the phenomena and provides a compelling account. If memory serves me correctly, Braude also speaks rather unfavorably about the integrity of Randi in the book as well.
Raël doesn't carry water for a Christian worldview either. Does that make his testimony about our alien overlords more plausible? Sorry, eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable, whether because of faking, lying, or just being mistaken. And when there are books to be sold, then you've got a motive. Lest you say that authors of science books are in the same suspicious position, the nature of scientific description is that it can be duplicated. As far as I know, no one has succeeded in duplicating levitation, etc, under controlled conditions, and any number of fakes and charlatans have been exposed.
I'd love to be able to levitate, or even to see someone levitating, but I don't have any religious reason to believe in it, and the evidence so far seems pretty much the same as the evidence for Elvis still being alive.
Jason, you say:
I don't trust Randi and his associates as judges of the paranormal.
To paraphrase Sye: a medium can't stand bright light for the same reason a thief can't find a policeman. Of course you don't trust Randi.
A question for you all: is belief in demons necessary to be a Christian? Think about it.
cheers from thawing Vienna, zilch
Zilch said:
ReplyDelete"For a statement to have 'explanatory power' means that it must explain stuff, not merely be an assertion that may or may not be true, but doesn't enable us to make predictions about the phenomenon in question. So unless your claim 'this happened because demons caused it' enables us to make better predictions about future cases, then I don't see any reason to attribute 'explanatory power' to it- at least not any more than to, say, the explanation 'this happened because polar bears are white'."
1. Why does an explanation also have to be predictive in order to be legit? Say someone was shot and killed. Say the explanation which perfectly fits the evidence is the victim was murdered by a hired gunman. This is a perfectly reasonable explanation. But why should this explanation have to be able to predict future cases where people shot and killed in order to be legit? There are lots of people shot and killed for other perfectly reasonable explanations (e.g. war).
2. How do you know a single accurate theory is predictive for all phenomena of the same type? Say the giant impact theory is true. Say our moon was formed through the collision of the Earth with another large celestial body. How do you know it predicts the formation of other planets in other galaxies?
3. By the same token, just because an explanation is predictive doesn't necessarily mean it's explanatory. For example, many women don't get pregnant because they use the pill. This has been shown to be scientifically true. But let's say a man happens to consume the pill and then have sexual intercourse. While the pill is a perfectly reasonable explanation with strong predictive power it doesn't mean the pill is the explanation for why the man didn't get pregnant.
4. Also there's the problem of reductionism. Are all phenomena in the universe explainable in terms of physics and mathematics? Is that what everything boils down to? Yet reductionism faces several problems, which I won't get into here, but you can Google for starters.
"How do you falsify demons if they are not physically present?"
How do you falsify numbers if they are not physically present?
"Are you, or is any, human being absolutely impervious to trickery? Can you explain every magician's trick you see? If you can't, does it count as 'inexplicable' on naturalism? If not, why not? Raël doesn't carry water for a Christian worldview either. Does that make his testimony about our alien overlords more plausible? Sorry, eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable, whether because of faking, lying, or just being mistaken. And when there are books to be sold, then you've got a motive. Lest you say that authors of science books are in the same suspicious position, the nature of scientific description is that it can be duplicated. As far as I know, no one has succeeded in duplicating levitation, etc, under controlled conditions, and any number of fakes and charlatans have been exposed."
ReplyDelete1. This is chock full of red herrings and the like. Since when was anyone talking about Raël? Since when is a sophisticated and intelligent professor of philosophy at a major academic institution like Stephen Braude equivalent to Claude Vorilhon?
2. With regard to duplicability or reproducibility as your criteria for science:
a. You seem to write as an extremist pulling in two contrary directions.
On the one hand, your statement reeks of a radical sort of skepticism. In fact, if followed through, it could take you down the rabbit hole of global skepticism, which would be nearly impossible to crawl out of given your atheism. We can never know anything! Nothing is certain! Doubt, question, suspect everything! Et cetera.
On the other hand, you evince a naive understanding of science. For instance, science itself makes non-reproducible assumptions in order to function. Take the law of non-contradiction or the constancy of natural laws across the universe. Have we physically reproduced our theories outside our little corner of the universe?
b. Besides, since when were scientists able to reproduce the multiverse? Yet it's accepted by notable scientists like Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking.
For that matter, have scientists reproduced macroevolution?
c. Some theories might be reproducible from one perspective but non-reproducible from another perspective. Much of string theory is reproducible mathematically but not in reality.
d. A theory can be reproducible but not entirely true. Well known is Newton's laws of physics. Newtonian physics is reproducible, but in light of modern physics technically mistaken.
or which atomic model best corresponds to reality? More than one model is reproducible.
e. In a quantum universe, is anything truly and objectively reproducible? Isn't it predominantly a matter of probabilities? Can you say with 100% certainty the sun will rise tomorrow? In a hundred years? Or any other point in the future (short of Earth's incineration as the Sun progresses to red giant)? More importantly, on what basis?
Not to mention various interpretations of probability fall prey to Hume's problem of induction.
"A question for you all: is belief in demons necessary to be a Christian? Think about it."
A question for you: is belief in numbers necessary to be a scientist? Think about it.
Not Specified wrote:
ReplyDelete"That's my fault. I asked him his thoughts about a different case."
That's not what I was referring to. I was referring to the fact that he brought up an individual not involved in the case you asked him about.
Zilch wrote:
ReplyDelete"Sorry, eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable, whether because of faking, lying, or just being mistaken."
Eyewitness testimony is usually reliable. We depend on it in our law courts, science, etc. If "eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable", then so much the worse for scientific experiments, articles in scientific journals, etc. that depend on eyewitness testimony. How many historical events that you believe in are ones you witnessed? For the vast majority of history, you're relying on the testimony of other people.
If eyewitness testimony isn't reliable, then how do you know that? Because of the testimony of eyewitnesses to studies of eyewitness testimony?
You write:
"To paraphrase Sye: a medium can't stand bright light for the same reason a thief can't find a policeman. Of course you don't trust Randi."
What does it prove to compare me to a thief not looking for a policeman without any supporting argument? Why don't you interact with our material on James Randi, like the thread I linked for you earlier?
ZILCH SAID:
ReplyDelete“For a statement to have ‘explanatory power’ means that it must explain stuff, not merely be an assertion that may or may not be true, but doesn't enable us to make predictions about the phenomenon in question. So unless your claim ‘this happened because demons caused it’ enables us to make better predictions about future cases, then I don't see any reason to attribute ‘explanatory power’ to it- at least not any more than to, say, the explanation ‘this happened because polar bears are white.’”
I have a small scar on my lower lip. Why? Because, many years ago, when I was chopping firewood, a flying splinter struck my lower lip.
But I guess that’s not a real explanation since it makes no predictions about the future state of the universe.
“Just assertions. Can you prove that any claim for demonic activity is false?”
You’re confounding two different issues:
a) What, in principle, counts as an explanation?
b) Is a proposed explanation the correct explanation?
“How do you falsify demons if they are not physically present?”
I guess you don’t believe in cosmology or paleontology or forensics inasmuch as the past isn’t physically present.
Likewise, I guess you don’t believe in particle physics inasmuch as unobservable elementary particles are merely inferred from what’s observable.
On a related note, platonic realists such as Roger Penrose and Kurt Gödel postulate timeless mathematical exemplars to account for concrete mathematical instances.
“Are you, or is any, human being absolutely impervious to trickery?”
Are you suggesting that explanations must be unmistakably true? If so, no scientific explanation is a genuine explanation.
I'm sorry I can't reply to all of you- I'm getting pretty busy at work. If you want to take that as a copout on my part, that's of course your prerogative. My position is basically the same as Jaecp at TW. I'll just try to answer a couple of things here. If anyone feels left out, my apologies.
ReplyDeleteJason, you say:
Do you deny, for example, that we can have sufficient evidence of an athlete's skill at a sport in spite of his having cheated at that sport? Do you assume that John Loftus is always lying or always being unfaithful to his wife, for instance, since he did such things in the past?
These are disanalogous to having sufficient evidence of the paranormal despite known cheating. We have sufficient evidence of skill at sports: we all know that we can move, and that we can learn movements and get good at them. It's not really surprising to anyone that people can get really good at sports. Sports can be analyzed and explained by physics and physiology.
The same thing goes for John's, or anybody's, ability to become faithful after having been unfaithful. Nothing mysterious or inexplicable here, is there? We all learn, more or less well, ways of getting by with others, more or less well. People becoming more or less truthful happens all the time. Again, nothing mysterious here, even if we don't really understand how thoughts work.
But in the case of the medium, as was also pointed out at the TW discussion, we are not examining a known skill such as sports or a mindset such as fidelity: we are trying to establish whether or not real magic (or whatever you want to call the paranormal) exists or not at all.
The mere understanding of the difference between the normal and the paranormal makes the cases different. We all know that people can jump and tell the truth; we don't all know that people can levitate. As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence; and I don't see it, especially as it's possible to be fooled by tricks, and there are lots of motives for mediums to use tricks.
Eyewitness testimony is usually reliable. We depend on it in our law courts, science, etc. If "eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable", then so much the worse for scientific experiments, articles in scientific journals, etc. that depend on eyewitness testimony. How many historical events that you believe in are ones you witnessed? For the vast majority of history, you're relying on the testimony of other people.
On the reliability of eyewitnesses, see here. And as I pointed out, science does not rely on just eyewitnesses: it's repeatable and peer reviewed. This does not guarantee perfection, of course; but it's more likely to provide an accurate picture of how the world works than, say, nineteenth century eyewitness accounts of levitation.
More later- cheers from snowy Vienna, zilch
zilch said:
ReplyDelete"On the reliability of eyewitnesses, see here."
See here and here too.
"And as I pointed out, science does not rely on just eyewitnesses: it's repeatable and peer reviewed."
1. I and others have already pointed out problems with reproducibility above.
2. Now you're adding peer review as part of the criteria. You didn't mention this before. Once we respond to your objections, you add or raise new objections rather than interacting with or conceding the counter-arguments. I'm afraid that's not a fair way to debate.
3. In the end, I suspect you'll just end up pitching some form of scientism.
4. Anyway peer review is problematic. For example, check out Ioannidis' work.
Zilch wrote:
ReplyDelete”We have sufficient evidence of skill at sports: we all know that we can move, and that we can learn movements and get good at them. It's not really surprising to anyone that people can get really good at sports.”
As I mentioned earlier, the large majority of people are supernaturalists. The occurrence of paranormal phenomena is “not really surprising” to them.
The issue in dispute in this context is whether cheating in one place is sufficient to dismiss apparent paranormal activity somewhere else. If cheating in portions of an athlete’s career isn’t sufficient to dismiss apparent athletic skill elsewhere in his career, the same reasoning can be applied to the paranormal context. Whether we have good evidence for the paranormal activity in question, apart from the consideration of cheating, is a different issue than whether cheating would be sufficient to overturn that evidence if it is good. If there’s good evidence for the paranormal activity of somebody like Eusapia Palladino, which there is, then a citation of her cheating on other occasions isn’t sufficient to overturn the probability that she exhibited paranormal abilities. It’s the same sort of reasoning we apply to sports and other contexts.
If you want to dispute that we have good evidence for something like Palladino’s activity, you can do that. But don’t expect her cheating in other contexts to be a sufficient argument that she cheated on the occasions under consideration.
You’re making some other points that are relevant to the larger issue of the historicity of paranormal phenomena, but they go beyond the point I was making. Many athletic skills are more common than the paranormal phenomena Palladino is alleged to have had. But the evidence for paranormal activity can be sufficient without being as good as the evidence for something like a particular athletic ability. And we do know more about how the body works than we know about the mechanisms involved in paranormal phenomena. That’s an advantage for something like our knowledge of athletic skills, but there can be sufficient evidence for the paranormal even if our knowledge of the subject is at a disadvantage in that context.
(continued below)
(continued from above)
ReplyDeleteYou write:
“As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”
We’ve addressed that subject many times at this blog and in our e-books in response to Loftus, et al. Search this blog’s archives, search our e-books, or do both. Interact with our arguments if you want to advance the discussion. It’s not enough to repeat a vague phrase like “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” when you’re having a discussion with people who have responded to that notion so many times and in so much depth.
You write:
“I don't see it, especially as it's possible to be fooled by tricks, and there are lots of motives for mediums to use tricks.”
The issue is probability, not possibility. And the possibility of “being fooled by tricks” has to be weighed against the many controls that Palladino’s testers had in place, the unlikelihood that they would have hallucinated or been mistaken in some other way, etc. In order to reject paranormal accounts like Palladino’s, you have to accept multiple scenarios that would be highly unusual. If you want us to believe that paranormal phenomena like Palladino’s would be even more unlikely than the cumulative unlikelihoods that you’re accepting as an alternative, then you need to make that case. As I’ve said before, even an agnostic could leave the door wide open to the paranormal. We don’t have to approach these issues as a Christian or even as a supernaturalist in order to be more open to the paranormal than you’re suggesting we should be. If you want us to believe in something like a form of naturalism that renders paranormal phenomena extraordinarily unlikely or impossible, then you need to argue for that position. So far, you haven’t.
You write:
“And as I pointed out, science does not rely on just eyewitnesses: it's repeatable and peer reviewed.”
How do you know that it has those qualities or that particular aspects of it meet those criteria? By relying on eyewitness testimony and testimony that doesn’t even come from alleged eyewitnesses. Saying that you also rely on other things, not just eyewitness testimony, doesn’t change the fact that you also rely on the testimony of eyewitnesses. And the fact that such testimony is sometimes wrong doesn’t overturn its general reliability. See the many posts on that subject in our archives.
Do you believe that the story you linked actually occurred? Do you trust the testimony of those witnesses?
Zilch and others might find Tim McGrew's "Evidence" helpful.
ReplyDelete