Killing Sagan’s Dragon: Falsifying the Un-disprovable

[Piggy]

NB: This thread is an offshoot of the Leprechaun thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=55330), where I proposed that certain underlying differences regarding the scope of skeptical inquiry and the validity of certain types of evidence could be meaningfully (tho not rigidly) described as various “brands” of skepticism -- for which I chose the designations orange, green, and purple. Also, I proposed that, in those debates which eventually boil down only to these differences, no resolution will ever be reached by introduction of more evidence or explanation.

This thread, however, intends to argue for the validity of the orange position.

Because it is very long, I have decided to break the OP into a series of posts, in order to make it easier for others to tear my arguments to shreds. Please do the favor of not posting replies until the entire OP series has been posted:

1. Killing Sagan’s Dragon: Falsifying the Un-disprovable
2. Enter the Dragon: The Green Position Described
3. What’s Wrong with Dragons Anyway?: Why Green Is Insufficient
4. Orange Skepticism: Beyond Logic, Math, and Science?

[Piggy]

Possibly the most well-known articulation of the green position comes from chapter 10 of Carl Sagan's book The Demon-Haunted World. Here is an excerpt from that chapter outlining the basics of the argument thru his thought experiment "The Dragon in My Garage" (http://spl.haxial.net/religion/misc/carl-sagan.html) (with passive edits for length, emphasis mine):

"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"

Suppose I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence.

"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside -- no dragon.

"Where's the dragon?" you ask.

"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.

"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."

Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."

You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."

And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.

The only thing you've really learned from my insistence that there's a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You'd wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind. But then, why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I've seriously underestimated human fallibility.

Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don't outright reject the notion that there's a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold. Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you're prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you. Surely it's unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative -- merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of "not proved."

Now another scenario: Suppose it's not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you're pretty sure don't know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages -- but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we're disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I'd rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren't myths at all.

Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they're never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon's fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such "evidence" -- no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it -- is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.

The green position is that, in the absence of scientific or logical disproof, the most we can do is to tentatively (but not absolutely) dismiss the claim, be open to the possibility of new evidence, and declare that the chances are so slim that it's safe to behave as though the claim were not true. However, we cannot rationally reach an absolute assertion of falsity.

[Piggy]

So, is there a problem here?

Well, yes. First of all, the green position forces skeptics into needlessly introducing doubt (albeit slim) where none exists in real life. This is revealed by way of example in the Leprechaun Test (see parent thread).

Secondly, the green position, by placing hard limits at the bounds of logical and scientific disproof only, imposes a "leap of faith" to bridge the gap. This allows any hypothesis, no matter how ridiculous, to demand – in fact, manufacture – a "faith" on the part of anyone who goes beyond agnosticism with regard to the claim, merely by rhetorically structuring the claim so that scientific/logical disprovability is built-in.

It puts skeptics at the mercy of mere verbal trickery. If I were to, on the spot, insist that there is an undetectable dog in my room which moves things I can't find and is responsible for noises I can't explain, the green position is required to stop somewhere short of "That's false". Even if I were to say, "I was just joking anyway", it's hard to see how the green position could move to absolute "No" even then – after all, there's some chance that my assertion could be coincidentally correct... just because I was joking doesn't make it wrong.

In a review (http://www.mcgath.com/demon.html) of Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World, Gary McGath expresses some orange objections to Sagan's stance which I will cite here, omitting much political and philosophical commentary that is not relevant to our topic (heavy passive editing, emphasis mine):

Sagan suggests that if you are "scrupulously open-minded," then you don't outright reject the notion of a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you're prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you.

Elsewhere in the book he writes that "all beliefs and all myths are worthy of a respectful hearing."

Sagan is, of course, trying to avoid dogmatic thinking. He notes that the claims made by relativity can seem just as arbitrary and fantastic as any dragon in the garage. There is evidence supporting relativity, but it is not the kind which most of us encounter or know how to analyze. Without willingness to consider the unlikely, we could never advance in science.

Still, the difference between an assertion for which support is claimed and one held in the absence of any support is crucial. The arguments for an idea may be difficult, flawed, dishonest, or merely inadequate; but some argument, bearing some slight degree of plausibility, is needed for the idea to qualify in the debate. If the advocates of a claim continue to hold it after all the evidence which they offer is refuted, they have no further claim on "a respectful hearing."

Sagan tells us that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." This dictum is valid and important. We often have to live with the absence of direct evidence; for instance, until recent years there was no strong direct evidence for the existence of planets outside the Solar System.

This contrasts with the case of a proposition for which there is simply no reasonable support, such as the claim that stars outside the Solar System influence our lives by their position.

The reason for Sagan's view evidently lies in a particular view of certainty and "absolutism." He states:

Except in pure mathematics, nothing is known for certain (although much is certainly false)...

Humans may crave absolute certainty; they may aspire to it, they may pretend, as partisans of certain religions do, to have attained it. But the history of science -- by far the most successful claim to knowledge accessible to humans -- teaches that the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes, an asymptotic approach to the Universe, but with the proviso that absolute certainty will always elude us.

If nothing is certain, then it's hard to see how anything can be "certainly false." Thus, we can't absolutely reject any empirical claim. But Sagan's view digs a trap for itself; he offers the impossibility of absolute certainty as an absolute certainty. The denial of all certainty cuts at its own roots, miring itself in inconsistency. Still, he is addressing a real problem: what we believe today may have to be corrected by tomorrow's evidence. We can't expect that everything which we believe today to be true will stand unchallenged by future knowledge.

But if all hypotheses deserve some consideration, we're stuck; we can propose that the whole universe is a figment of your imagination, or that our minds are processes in a gigantic computer simulation, and who's to contradict the claim? "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." But if we take a contextual approach, we can recognize that there's something out there, and that it impinges on our awareness in certain ways. Broadening our understanding, we can recognize that reality is self-consistent -- that something can't be so and not be so at the same time and in the same respect.

The Leprechaun Test shows that a gap exists between the model constructed by green methodology on the one hand and reality as we know it on the other.

Green assumptions about the limits of valid evidence then insist that these gaps can only be bridged by faith, that there is nothing beyond the rigors of science, math, and logic – except irrational belief – to close the gap.

The orange approach affirms that there are rational tools which can flesh out the model so that this gap is removed without resorting to leaps of faith. These tools are, to use McGath's term "contextual", although they are not McGath's solution. Post 4 explains.

[Piggy]

The orange variety of skeptical inquiry maintains that even if a claim has not been disproven or is inherently un-disprovable by scientific inquiry and cannot be dismissed by applying rigid logical analysis, it still may be falsifiable.

If that is the case, then obviously there must be means in addition to (not instead of) science and logic – other tools in the skeptical toolbelt – that are acceptable to use when determining if a claim is false. The orange view asserts that there are, that logical and scientific analysis do not border onto some Hazzard County line where we are obliged to skid to a halt, throw down our hats, and holler "Dang them Duke boys!"

Among these tools are:
Analysis of the claim's rhetorical context
Analysis of the claim's ramifications, or comparison of true/false alternatives

For some claims, a comparison of true/false alternatives is sufficient to dismiss the claim immediately, without much or any scientific investigation whatsoever. For example, "China isn't real – it's a lie fabricated by the media" (an actual example once offered on another board as a claim which could not be 100% disproven).

To positively dismiss this claim, we only have to consider what would have to be true if this claim were false versus what would have to be true if this claim were true. The sheer number of willing participants required, with no apparent motive, together with the implausibility of such a hoax never being broken by America's press, along with the scope and volume of necessary manufactured phony evidence reaching into so many facets of life from publishing to politics to business and beyond, make this claim not merely highly improbable but 100% impossible.

An analysis of claim's rhetorical context is the primary tool that can rationally fill the margin in the leprechaun case. When we examine the claim, we find that it:
- Has origins purely in superstition and myth and has now passed into mere folklore
- Has no proponents who are not considered extremely marginal in their belief, if not outright crazy

When we add to that an analysis of the ramifications of the claim if true – existence of magical beings, which would force an unprecedented paradigm shift in scientific thought – then the gap left by the green model of scientific inquiry is rationally bridged, and the claim, from an orange point of view, is falsified with no reservations.

As another example, in the case of Sagan's Dragon, suppose that we looked into the backgrounds of the folks who are claiming that Undetectable Dragons in Garages (UDIGs) are real, and rummage around in the latest psychological studies on the matter, and we find the following:

Although there are ancient and widespread traditions of belief in UDIGs – which formerly abided in stables, according to believers -- there seems to be no even minimally coherent theory of a UDIG, no minimal set of properties that adherents can agree on, even if we exclude highly marginal opinions.

There are credible evolutionary and biological explanations for why humans would tend to believe in UDIGs even if UDIGs are not real.

Except for a small number of converts, UDIG claimants were taught literally from the cradle that UDIGs are real, that they are the ultimate source of all morality and goodness and love, that doubting their existence can result in eternal torture, and that people who don't believe in them are under the influence of demons.

Now the situation is significantly different. The claim is not merely irrational but incoherent; there is an explanation of why people should make the claim that is consistent with what we know about the world; and there is evidence of widespread indoctrination and intimidation of believers from an extremely young age.

From an orange point of view, at this point we have rational justification for affirming the falsity of the claim, without making any irrational leap of faith in order to do so.

Or consider the toddler who invents an implausible story in an apparent attempt to avoid punishment. As the faults of the story are revealed, he comes up with even more outlandish excuses, digging himself further into his hole (and increasing his eventual punishment in the process). Considering not just the implausibility of the claims per se, but also their source (rhetorical context), at some point – like when he says the Easter Bunny did it – we are justified in concluding that the chances of his story being true are zero.

I'll end with one more example, this time not hypothetical: Roy's black dog.

One day, my stepfather, who had brain cancer but was still ambulatory, asked where the black dog in the back yard came from. We didn't see a black dog. He insisted it was there, described it, pointed out precisely where it was. But the yard was small and well-fenced. There was no dog.

If the green methodology of analysis of this claim admits any chance that Roy was seeing a real dog that my mother and I were not seeing, then I cannot accept this methodology.

Greens may argue with the efficacy of tools such as analysis of rhetorical context in particular cases, but they are not justified in asserting that moving to absolute certainty in cases lacking scientific and/or logical disproof must always involve a leap of faith.

And that's what I'm talkin' 'bout, Willis.

[trvlr2]

Piggy-Certainly persuasive arguments.

Seems to me that regarding dragon,leprechaun,et al,there are only 3 things to worry about:
1.It is.(1) 2. Doubtful (1 or 0) 3. Is not(0)
You have clearly stated the problems with 1.
3. Seems to share some of the same problems. You seem to be stating a positive belief in a "Not", or zero proposition.
2. Seems to be more powerful to me, for 1. and 3. are accounted for.

You seem to be an idealist-I prefer pragmatism. I won't be surprised to find out that some things about the universe have some duality, but you might.
Is it a wave or a particle? Well, it is uncertain-I know you get the drift. Maybe one day, we can describe electrons and photons clearly, but for now, we lamely say "it has characteristics of both".
Man-powered flight was "impossible" until recently. Many "is nots" had to suffer adjustments in their belief systems to accomodate it. Heck, we still have flat earthers!

The other thing I have a problem with ,is that 1. & 3. put you into taking things on "faith". I just don't wanna be included with the deluded!! I may well BE deluded, just don't like it one bit!

[Piggy]

You seem to be an idealist-I prefer pragmatism. I won't be surprised to find out that some things about the universe have some duality, but you might.
This is not a discussion of dualism or idealism, so I'm not going to concern myself with that. If you think somehow it is, then it would be best if you defined those terms and showed how they were relevant and what they have to add here. Maybe they have something to do with this....

Is it a wave or a particle? Well, it is uncertain - I know you get the drift.
I don't get your drift at all, and if this statement is supposed to illuminate your statements above, then your comments on dualism and idealism are irreleveant here.

Wave-particle duality is very well demonstrated. It has nothing whatsoever to do with positively falsifying unsupported claims. Therefore, I won't discuss it here.

Man-powered flight was "impossible" until recently. Many "is nots" had to suffer adjustments in their belief systems to accomodate it. Heck, we still have flat earthers!
All of this is also irrelevant to the very narrow scope of this thread. There is nothing in the orange approach that would have obliged someone in, say, 1750 to declare the possibility of man-powered flight false. In fact, an orange would look at flying animals and say, "If they can do it naturally, why not us mechanically when we figure it out and develop the technology".

The other thing I have a problem with ,is that 1. & 3. put you into taking things on "faith".
Post 4 explains the orange position on this. In fact, the very crux of the OPs is the orange position that it is possible to falsify UDIG-like claims without a leap of faith. Since you don't bother to even reference the proposed mechanisms, there is no need to bother with this criticism as-stated.

I just don't wanna be included with the deluded!!
Then start looking for an investigative methodology that doesn't require you have any doubts about the non-existence of leprechauns, undetectable dogs, and invisible dragons in garages.

[.13.]

Secondly, the green position, by placing hard limits at the bounds of logical and scientific disproof only, imposes a "leap of faith" to bridge the gap. This allows any hypothesis, no matter how ridiculous, to demand – in fact, manufacture – a "faith" on the part of anyone who goes beyond agnosticism with regard to the claim, merely by rhetorically structuring the claim so that scientific/logical disprovability is built-in.

I've earlier used the phrase "leap of faith" and I admit it was a poor choice of words. As other posters pointed out in the other thread green position doesn't force agnostic position. When the probability for leprechauns is sufficiently small it is good practice to consider them non-existent while being open to new evidence. It is not a belief per se but a lack of it.


It puts skeptics at the mercy of mere verbal trickery. If I were to, on the spot, insist that there is an undetectable dog in my room which moves things I can't find and is responsible for noises I can't explain, the green position is required to stop somewhere short of "That's false". Even if I were to say, "I was just joking anyway", it's hard to see how the green position could move to absolute "No" even then – after all, there's some chance that my assertion could be coincidentally correct... just because I was joking doesn't make it wrong.

This is not a fault in green methodology. It is a fault of a skeptic who lets believers get away with it. But even if we accept "verbal trickery" from the believer and his proposition is unfalsifiable it doesn't mean it has been proven correct. Nor does it mean it is as likely to be true as it is false.


Analysis of the claim's ramifications, or comparison of true/false alternatives

When we add to that an analysis of the ramifications of the claim if true – existence of magical beings, which would force an unprecedented paradigm shift in scientific thought – then the gap left by the green model of scientific inquiry is rationally bridged, and the claim, from an orange point of view, is falsified with no reservations.

How is the paradigm shift in scientific thought relevant? One of the strengths of science is that it is not closed to paradigm shift if there is evidence to support it. If there is not then there is no paradigm shift. The prospect of a paradigm shift is not evidence for or against existence of leprechauns.


An analysis of claim's rhetorical context is the primary tool that can rationally fill the margin in the leprechaun case. When we examine the claim, we find that it:
- Has origins purely in superstition and myth and has now passed into mere folklore
- Has no proponents who are not considered extremely marginal in their belief, if not outright crazy

First point: It can't be proven that the origins are purely superstition and myth.
Second point: Ad hominem.


One day, my stepfather, who had brain cancer but was still ambulatory, asked where the black dog in the back yard came from. We didn't see a black dog. He insisted it was there, described it, pointed out precisely where it was. But the yard was small and well-fenced. There was no dog.

If the green methodology of analysis of this claim admits any chance that Roy was seeing a real dog that my mother and I were not seeing, then I cannot accept this methodology.

The chance that he saw a real dog is very slim and not worth considering unless there is corroborating evidence. Why does that make green methodology unacceptable?

You also talked about indoctrination. Orange position seems to indoctrinate into the other direction. Leprechauns don't exist and there is no chance they do exist. That means any evidence will be outright dismissed because there can be no evidence for non-existent creatures and people providing such evidence are considered loony.

Doubt is an important part of science and skepticism. Orange skeptic claims infallibility and the orange skepticism is not skeptical of itself unlike green. I don't consider doubt as a weaknes in green skepticism but I consider the dogmatic nature of orange its major flaw.

[Jekyll]

Honestly, this is the problem with trying to couch investigative statements of the real world in terms of absolutes. At the moment you have three possible responses to a statement, proveably true, provably false and undecided.

Outside of mathematics and Descartes' "Something exists because I seem to be thinking." nothing is logically certain. We live in the gray area. This doesn't mean we can't evaluate statements but we will never be absolutely certain that we are right.

What's really cool about this is it doesn't matter; we can still put bounds on our ignorance. By phrasing the inital plausibility of statements in terms of prior probabilities, we can still ignore the really wacky hypothesises such as Sagan's dragon, as generally any other explanation will seem more plausible unless sufficently strong new evidence (you start tripping over an invisible scaly tail) apears.

Your method has the unfortuante side effect, that in order to be consistant you would have to continue to deny the existance of the dragon in the face of startling evidence in favor of it.

One of the nice things about this method is that, often, the more special attributes you give your dragon to stop people testing for it, the more implausible it becomes a priori.

At the moment I'd assign a probability of less than 10^-8 that anyone does have an invisible firebreathing dragon in their garage and whilest I don't have one hundred million dollars avalible I'd be quite happy to bet the contents of my current account on it.;)

Jaynes covers all of this in great detail in his book PROBABILITY THEORY: THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE which can be found here: http://omega.albany.edu:8008/JaynesBook.html

Have a skim over chapters 4 and 5 if you are interested.

[tsg]

My problem with the orange position is it appears to be an unwillingness to admit even the slightest possibility of a claim for fear of "giving up ground". It is simply playing into the fallacy. That a claim is possible does not make it true. The argument "it's not impossible" is most often used by believers rather than greens as justification for their beliefs and is a fallacious argument. Staunchly claiming "yes it is" despite a lack of evidence doesn't disarm the fallacy, it only steers the argument into proving whether or not it is possible. Pointing out that being possible and actually happening are two entirely separate things disarms the fallacy.

Is there an Easter Bunny? No. Absolutely not. But I say this because it is an admitted fabrication. There are no rational adults who seriously claim the Easter Bunny exists.

Are there Leprechauns? As described by mythology, no. Can I say for certain that the mythology of leprechauns doesn't have at least some basis in fact? No, I can't. As with many legends, it is entirely possible the idea of leprechauns originates with some occurrance which has largely been distorted and exaggerated with subsequent retellings. Do they still count as leprechauns? Now we're arguing definitions.

Are UFO's abducting people? No. I am convinced the stories of UFO's abductions are false. Does that mean I am 100% certain it has never happened? No. There is a possibility, even if it is miniscule, that an extra-terrestrial species has visited Earth and taken a human being to study. We may find out tomorrow that it has actually happened. Does this lend credence in any way to the stories of those claiming to have been abducted? No, not even a little bit.

It seems to me the problem lies not with the inability to prove a claim false, but the belief that that inability lends credence to the claim. It doesn't. I can't see the difference between believing a claim without evidence and believing a claim is impossible without evidence.

[Roboramma]

tsg once again you have said everything I would have liked to say better than I could have said it.

[tsg]

tsg once again you have said everything I would have liked to say better than I could have said it.

Twisted minds think alike?

[Piggy]

When the probability for leprechauns is sufficiently small it is good practice to consider them non-existent while being open to new evidence.
Yes, but the orange position is that being open to new evidence in the case of leprechauns, invisible dragons, and Roy's black dog is unwarranted.

In these cases, what remains after a thorough investigation of the claims is what I call a "homeopathic" level of doubt in their falsity.

Just as homeopathy dilutes an ingredient until, although a small percentage shows on paper, the real world cannnot sustain it because not one molecule could be left in the dilution, so the green position on these issues admits a level of doubt so small that -- when we pull ourselves out of the model and return to the world-as-is -- it cannot be called in any sense "real". Off the paper, it simply isn't. The orange skeptic moves to zero probability and is confident in rationally declaring that no doubt exists, period.

[Piggy]

But even if we accept "verbal trickery" from the believer and his proposition is unfalsifiable it doesn't mean it has been proven correct. Nor does it mean it is as likely to be true as it is false.
This is also the orange position.

[Piggy]

How is the paradigm shift in scientific thought relevant? One of the strengths of science is that it is not closed to paradigm shift if there is evidence to support it. If there is not then there is no paradigm shift. The prospect of a paradigm shift is not evidence for or against existence of leprechauns.
It is not in itself evidence against the existence of leprechauns. In itself, it could not be evidence against any claim, for the reasons you cite.

However, the orange position holds that the rhetorical context of a claim can matter, as can an analysis of the potential repurcussions of a claim being true.

In the case of leprechauns, as noted in post 4, understanding the full implications of the claim is part and parcel of examining it. Why is this? Because... if an unsupported claim, in order to be true, would require a sweeping paradigm shift in scientific thought, this means that there exists an enormous body of thoroughly vetted data against it.

When you combine this fact with the other circumstances of the claim, the margin of doubt is closed, and it is rational and reasoned to conclude that there is no actual doubt concerning the falsity of the claim.

[Steven Howard]

I think Sagan has it right when he writes, "Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all?"

"This garage contains a dragon whose presence cannot be detected in any way," is a nonsensical statement. It conveys no information. Whether it's true or false simply doesn't matter. If it mattered, that would mean that the presence or absence of the dragon would have some noticeable effect. But such a noticeable effect would be a way to detect the dragon, and by definition there is no way to detect the dragon.

So when I say, "This garage contains a completely undetectable dragon" and you say "This garage contains no dragons of any kind," we're not disagreeing. The garage I describe is in every way indistinguishable from the garage you describe. They are therefore, in every way that could possibly matter, the same garage.

Now as it turns out, we rarely encounter propositions like this. What we usually get is the situation in Sagan's later example, where there's scattered and very dubious "evidence," mostly if not exclusively presented by people who were already believers before they "found" it. A dragon who sometimes leaves footprints and sometimes burns things is not completely undetectable. By presenting evidence, they implicitly make the claim that dragons have detectable effects on their environment. When no such effects are seen, it's reasonable to conclude that no dragons are present.

At this point, we can examine the evidence and determine what conclusions are reasonable to draw from it. Assuming that the evidence cannot be replicated and the dragon remains undetectable, Sagan would have us say, "There is currently no evidence that this garage contains a dragon." The question is, I guess, whether that's significantly different from saying, "This garage contains no dragons of any kind."

I don't think it is. I say, "This garage contains a dragon which is very hard to detect, but sometimes leaves footprints and burns things." You say, "This garage contains no dragons of any kind." Sagan says, "This garage contains no currently detectable dragons." You disagree with me but not with Sagan. Again, your statements describe the same garage, in every way that matters.

What color does that make me? Mauve or something, maybe.

[tsg]

Yes, but the orange position is that being open to new evidence in the case of leprechauns, invisible dragons, and Roy's black dog is unwarranted.

In these cases, what remains after a thorough investigation of the claims is what I call a "homeopathic" level of doubt in their falsity.

Just as homeopathy dilutes an ingredient until, although a small percentage shows on paper, the real world cannnot sustain it because not one molecule could be left in the dilution, so the green position on these issues admits a level of doubt so small that -- when we pull ourselves out of the model and return to the world-as-is -- it cannot be called in any sense "real". Off the paper, it simply isn't. The orange skeptic moves to zero probability and is confident in rationally declaring that no doubt exists, period.

Just to extend the analogy, there are levels of homeopathic dilution that are not below the level of one molecule[1]. These dilutions will have the substance present but at levels so low they may as well not be there. The green position at this point would be to say, "yes, they are there, but completely ineffective" where the orange position would be to say "no, they aren't there." I'm not sure I see the necessity of making that move from infinitely small to zero.

Where the analogy breaks down, however, is what is the smallest unit of doubt?

[1] Jeebus no, I am not defending homeopathy.

[Piggy]

An analysis of claim's rhetorical context is the primary tool that can rationally fill the margin in the leprechaun case. When we examine the claim, we find that it:
- Has origins purely in superstition and myth and has now passed into mere folklore
- Has no proponents who are not considered extremely marginal in their belief, if not outright crazy
First point: It can't be proven that the origins are purely superstition and myth.
Second point: Ad hominem.

First point: Do you know of any investigation of leprechauns which has shown an origin other than superstition and myth? That's all my post was saying -- when we examine the claim, we find origins purely in superstition and myth.

Second point: Yes, I know it's ad hominem. I freely admit that. Ad hominem arguments are not disallowed (though they are not necessarily allowed, depending on the argument) when evaluating a claim's context.

For example, suppose you're visiting New York and you're on your way to the police station to meet a policeman friend of yours for lunch.

While you're walking to the subway station, a fellow comes up to you and offers to sell you a new Rolex watch for just $100. He says it's worth at least $10,000. But y'see, his uncle died and left it to him, so he's not out any money for it, and he pawned a TV a month ago that he got as a gift and it turned out to be stolen so he's not allowed in the pawn shops anymore, and he desperately needs the money to buy some insulin right away, so you're getting the deal of a lifetime. He has the certificate of authenticity right here in his pocket with the serial number and all.

You ditch him, dismissing him as a con man, but on the subway ride you wonder what the chances were that he was for real.

You get to the station and tell your friend that some guy offered to sell you a Rolex on the corner of Street and Avenue.

"Was this guy about 5'3", balding on top, bushy eyebrows, Maine accent?"

Yup.

"He say he inherited it from his uncle, and he needed insulin?"

Yup.

"He tell you he couldn't go to the pawn shops because he tried to pawn a stolen TV someone gave him?"

Yup.

"Did he say he had the certificate of authenticity with the serial number on it?"

Yup.

"Oh, we know all about him," your friend says. He takes you to the records room and shows you the guy's file. He's been pulling this same scam in several major cities for years. Turns out, he gets his bogus watches from a fellow who recently got out of jail and is back in town. "Looks like old Down East Ernie is back in business," he says.

So now I ask you -- what are the chances of Ernie's offer being legit?

A: Zero. And not a fraction more. Any theoretical doubt is at a homeopathic dilution that reality cannot sustain.

That doesn't mean that all ad hominem arguments are worth considering. Take, for example, the canard used by creationists, when they find irrelevant errors in Darwin's writing -- such as his discussion of the chronological relationship between swim bladders and lungs -- and claim his theory must therefore be wrong.

But rejecting all investigation into the credibility of the person(s) making a claim on the basis that it's "ad hominem" is either dogmatic or intellectually lazy.

[Piggy]

The chance that he saw a real dog is very slim and not worth considering unless there is corroborating evidence. Why does that make green methodology unacceptable?
Because the chance that he saw a dog is homeopathically slim, yet the green position stops short of declaring that it is impossible that he saw a dog. According to the green interpretation, I must in some way be open to the possibility of new evidence, or I can only "behave as if" he did not actually see a dog.

I will discuss the implications of this situation in a later post. (I'm on lunch hour.)

[Roboramma]

Just as homeopathy dilutes an ingredient until, although a small percentage shows on paper, the real world cannnot sustain it because not one molecule could be left in the dilution

I'm not sure I understand the whole homeopathy thing right, but from what I understand homeopathic "medicines" are diluted to the point that they wouldn't have a single molecule left of the "active agent". But the molecules of the original must be somewhere, right? So isn't there necessarily a (very small) chance that there is one or two molecules in a particular dilution?

To make myself clear - I make a number of dilutions. Say (unrealistically small) I start out with 1,000,000 molecules of X in ml of water.
- 1st dilution, pour 1 ml of water into 1 L. Stir. Take out ml.
- 2nd dilution, repeat.
etc.

After the 1st step, I should have on average only 1,000 molecules. After the second only 1 (if I'm doing my math right). If I do this again, I have only a 1 in 1000 chance of having a single molecule. But there's still a chance. No matter how many dilutions I make there is still some chance that there's a molecule of the original substance. The chance just becomes vanishingly small as I make more dilutions.

Of course this in no way validates the idiocy of homeopathy. But I think it makes a good metaphor for the green position. It's still possible that there's a stray molecule (and as I've shown, it is possible, from a mathematical perspective), just as it is possible based on what we know that some outrageous claim could be true. The possibility is just vanishingly small. Small enough to be disregarded.

ETA: by the way, I don't know all that much about chemistry or dilutions, so please anyone point out any errors in my above post. thanks :)

[Piggy]

Orange position seems to indoctrinate into the other direction. Leprechauns don't exist and there is no chance they do exist. That means any evidence will be outright dismissed because there can be no evidence for non-existent creatures and people providing such evidence are considered loony.

Doubt is an important part of science and skepticism. Orange skeptic claims infallibility and the orange skepticism is not skeptical of itself unlike green. I don't consider doubt as a weaknes in green skepticism but I consider the dogmatic nature of orange its major flaw.
The green position is too weak because it admits doubt where there ought not be any. Orange skepticism claims that rational means exist to close the gap left by the purely logical/scientific investigation of a claim, which in some cases can erase the margin of doubt and allow positive falsification of the claim.

The truth is, in cases like the ones given, absolute certainty in real-world terms is possible. To put any actual credence in the green margin of doubt in these cases -- to actually be open to the possibility that evidence showing that UDIGs, leprechauns, or Roy's black dog were real -- is to have at least a toe in the castle in the sky.

[Roboramma]

An analysis of claim's rhetorical context is the primary tool that can rationally fill the margin in the leprechaun case. When we examine the claim, we find that it:
- Has origins purely in superstition and myth and has now passed into mere folklore
- Has no proponents who are not considered extremely marginal in their belief, if not outright crazy
The problem I have with this line of thinking is that while the origins of the claim may not offer any evidence for it, they certainly can't be said as evidence against it. People could have hit on this claim just by chance. Unlikely, sure.

But someone saying it doesn't make the claim itself any less likely to be true.
If I were to say, "I'm making this up. There's a dragon in my garage." it doesn't become less likely that there is a dragon in my garage than it was before I said that.

There are credible evolutionary and biological explanations for why humans would tend to believe in UDIGs even if UDIGs are not real.
I'd like to point out that I think that all of these are good arguments for why we shouldn't believe it when people tell us these things. But they are arguments against the evidence of anecdote, not negative evidence themselves.
However, once that anecdotal evidence has been rightly dismissed, we are left with nothing but something that doesn't fit with the world as we know it, and thus is very unlikely to exist. But dismissing the anecdotal evidence puts you into no stronger a position as an orange than if the anecdotal evidence hadn't existed at all.

From an orange point of view, at this point we have rational justification for affirming the falsity of the claim, without making any irrational leap of faith in order to do so.
I'd suggest that at this point you have plenty of evidence that the people making the claim are not making it because it's true. But that doesn't mean it's false. It just means that if it is true, they got lucky.

I'll end with one more example, this time not hypothetical: Roy's black dog.
Again, the (tiny) chance that always existed of an invisible black dog being in your back yard was not decreased by the fact that your step-father hallucinated one.
The chance that there is an invisible black dog that your step father alone could see was not decreased by the fact that he had brain cancer, and was likely to be having hallucinations.
What it does mean is that we have a much better explanation of that piece of evidence for an invisible black dog. So much better, in fact, that your step-father seeing a black dog shouldn't be taken as evidence for an invisible black dog at all. But absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

[Stir]

Certainly an interesting thread. Thanks for opening & monitoring it Piggy!

Three opinions could be: "A" can't be proven or disproven, but ...
1. I believe it to be false
2. I don't know
3. I believe it to be true.

If I correctly understand Piggy's position, he'd like another possibility:
1.5 but it is "falsifiable" (not the same as proven false)

and declaring a thing "falsifiable" can be done by applying other 'rational methods' which include : (my wildly over-simplified and argumentative characterizations follow) it's unlikely, it's unpopular, it's inconvenient, and it does not agree with my personal perception of the way things are ... and application of these 'rational methods' allows total elimination of all doubt.

and as further argument/evidence, Piggy states

"The green position is too weak because it admits doubt where there ought not be any."

I find that I am unable to accept, based on faith alone, that there ought not to be any doubt. I'm able, on a good day, to doubt even those things I'm absolutely sure of!

Green, green, it's green they say ......

[Piggy]

Three opinions could be: "A" can't be proven or disproven, but ...
1. I believe it to be false
2. I don't know
3. I believe it to be true.

If I correctly understand Piggy's position, he'd like another possibility:
1.5 but it is "falsifiable" (not the same as proven false)

and declaring a thing "falsifiable" can be done by applying other 'rational methods' which include : (my wildly over-simplified and argumentative characterizations follow) it's unlikely, it's unpopular, it's inconvenient, and it does not agree with my personal perception of the way things are ... and application of these 'rational methods' allows total elimination of all doubt.

and as further argument/evidence, Piggy states

"The green position is too weak because it admits doubt where there ought not be any."
Well... kinda.

I do agree that these are "wildly over-simplified and argumentative characterizations" so I'll take issue with them, but I won't deny that my position is going to seem totally untenable to hardcore greens.

* "It's unlikely" -- That doesn't cut it. Gotta go all the way to "unsupported" and "contradicts established scientific findings"

* "It's unpopular" -- Also way too short of the mark. Where I live, evolution and the Big Bang are highly unpopular, and relativity and quantum mechanics are practically unknown. But the orange POV would find no reason to doubt them. On the other hand, orange skeptics would have no grounds for dismissing string theory as falsifiable, despite the fact that it's not popular with scientists and virtually unknown among the general population. But we would go to "No" on creationism, which is enormously popular in the US.

* "It's inconvenient" -- I actually can't figure out the referent for that one.

* "It does not agree with my personal perception of the way things are" -- That is the most likely valid, and perhaps fatal, criticism of the entire construct.

* "Application of these 'rational methods' allows total elimination of all doubt" -- Yup. As long as we're talking about real-world doubt (and not doubt on paper) which is the only kind that matters to me.

However, you've failed to mention the most important point of the OPs, which is an accurate description of the conditions and methods used. I do believe that analysis of the rhetorical context of the claim is a valid skeptical tool -- even tho it is neither purely scientific nor purely logical.

Furthermore, I do consider such analysis rational. Therefore, I reject the green claim that there is nothing in addition to scientific method and logical modeling that can close the gap in extreme cases such as leprechauns, UDIGs, or Roy's black dog.

[Piggy]

Outside of mathematics and Descartes' "Something exists because I seem to be thinking." nothing is logically certain. We live in the gray area.
I agree with the first sentence. But I don't agree with the second, because I don't believe that the real world is the same as the world of logical abstraction.

[Piggy]

What's really cool about this is it doesn't matter; we can still put bounds on our ignorance. By phrasing the inital plausibility of statements in terms of prior probabilities, we can still ignore the really wacky hypothesises such as Sagan's dragon, as generally any other explanation will seem more plausible unless sufficently strong new evidence (you start tripping over an invisible scaly tail) apears.

Your method has the unfortuante side effect, that in order to be consistant you would have to continue to deny the existance of the dragon in the face of startling evidence in favor of it.
Then you misunderstand the method.

This method asserts that there never has been such an extreme case in which new evidence was produced, and there never will be. The method asserts that it is not reasonable to seriously consider the possibility of sudden credible evidence in such cases. The demand to seriously consider this possibility is an irrational and undue burden.

If that were to happen, if magical leprechauns appeared or invisible dragons were confirmed, the orange method would fail. By the same token, if it were shown that the scientific method yielded bogus results, it would fail, but there's no reason to abandon it just because someone claims it might.

Until that happens, it is not a valid counter-argument; it is just another hypothetical scenario as far fetched as the claims themselves.

I am not prepared to stop using perfectly reasonable and effective skeptical methods such as the examination of a claim's rhetorical context just because someone asserts that these may, somehow, sometime, be countermanded.

And yes, it does matter. In some cases, the difference between asserting that a claim is false, and asserting only that we can dismiss it until and unless we see some evidence, makes a world of difference.

If one is only allowed the latter, then asserting falsity becomes a leap of faith, a belief. And if a method demands a leap of faith to falsify what is patently untrue, the social and political consequences can be significant.

[Piggy]

Jaynes covers all of this in great detail in his book PROBABILITY THEORY: THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE which can be found here: http://omega.albany.edu:8008/JaynesBook.html

Have a skim over chapters 4 and 5 if you are interested.
Thanks for the tip. I'm very interested in probability theory, and have gotten some recommendations on math books (I'm a math idiot) from others on this board.

I doubt it would affect this thread, tho, since what I am proposing is a brand of skepticism that recognizes the validity of methods other than logical and scientific methods to falsify certain claims which these methods cannot by themselves disprove.

[Piggy]

My problem with the orange position is it appears to be an unwillingness to admit even the slightest possibility of a claim for fear of "giving up ground".
Gotta admit, that puzzles me. Where do you get the impression that "fear of 'giving up ground'" is a motivation? What ground?

[Beth]

And yes, it does matter. In some cases, the difference between asserting that a claim is false, and asserting only that we can dismiss it until and unless we see some evidence, makes a world of difference.

If one is only allowed the latter, then asserting falsity becomes a leap of faith, a belief. And if a method demands a leap of faith to falsify what is patently untrue, the social and political consequences can be significant.

It seems to me you are starting with the conclusion and trying to build a rational rationalization for your conclusion. Also, I am not sure I understand what you mean when you talk about analyzing the rhetorical context of a claim. Could you explain that a bit? Thank you.

[Piggy]

It is simply playing into the fallacy. That a claim is possible does not make it true. The argument "it's not impossible" is most often used by believers rather than greens as justification for their beliefs and is a fallacious argument. Staunchly claiming "yes it is" despite a lack of evidence doesn't disarm the fallacy, it only steers the argument into proving whether or not it is possible.
The difference between the crank "It's not impossible" argument and the orange "It is impossible" argument can be found in your own words -- "despite a lack of evidence".

The difference between the orange and green positions lies in the types of evidence considered valid for skeptical inquiry. The orange position, like the green position, never allows a conclusion of falsity in the absence of evidence for falsity.

Green skeptics draw a line at the boundary of abstract logic and scientific method.

Orange skepticism is a bit more hard-knuckled. It is skepticism with street smarts. An orange skeptic -- and maybe I'm the only one on this board, but I guarantee you I'm not the only one walking around -- recognizes the validity of other methods such as analyzing the rhetorical context of the claim, in determining whether a very slim margin of doubt is valid in the world-as-is, or is just an artifact of the method used to model the problem.

[pjh]

Claims that are inherently verifiable (Like China's existance) can be given merit and accepted even if you do not verify them yourself. This is not an act of faith (more one of laziness)

I think SHowards thinking runs true, it's the Duck argument -

'If it walks like a Duck and Quacks like a duck then it is a duck'

Put another way - if there are no differences between 2 things then they are by definition the same [thing].

So if there's no differences between an Invisible Dragon in my garage and no Dragon in my garage - well then - There is no dragon in my garage!

[Piggy]

It seems to me you are starting with the conclusion and trying to build a rational rationalization for your conclusion.
That's possible. And if that's true, then my method is a house of cards.

Of course, in some ways, no observer can help that. There have to be some hardpan axioms that we just accept. This is true of logical and scientific analysis, too.

But my conclusion that claims such as "Leprechauns are real" are unsupported and unsupportable is indeed a conclusion, not an assumption. Which brings us to the second point.

I am not sure I understand what you mean when you talk about analyzing the rhetorical context of a claim. Could you explain that a bit?
I get the impression that most (but certainly not all) folks on this board, if they have advanced degrees and/or professional training/experience, have backgrounds in math, science, logic, engineering, and other such fields. There are also some philosophers, it seems.

My field is rhetoric. And in that field, it is perfectly permissible, when evaluating a claim, to examine the source of the claim -- what are its origins, who's making it, what's their background, what might their motives be, where and when are they making it and to whom, what have they said in the past to others on this subject in other situations?

Analyzing the rhetorical context of a claim means looking outside the claim itself.

For example, in the case of Roy's black dog, a purely scientific/logical approach would note that a lack of evidence for the dog cannot be construed as evidence that it does not exist -- and would stop there.

An analysis of the rhetorical context, however, is allowed to note that the claim was made by a man who had begun to hallucinate due to a brain tumor.

So when we add together the lack of scientific evidence, the rhetorical context, the presence of 2 other witnesses who saw no dog, scientific research verifying the possibility of vivid and detailed hallucinations, Roy's pattern of behavior in the days prior to the claim, and the physical properties of the yard and the time of day and lighting, we are able to conclude, with no reasonable or rational level of doubt, that there was, in fact, no dog.

[Piggy]

Are there Leprechauns? As described by mythology, no. Can I say for certain that the mythology of leprechauns doesn't have at least some basis in fact? No, I can't. As with many legends, it is entirely possible the idea of leprechauns originates with some occurrance which has largely been distorted and exaggerated with subsequent retellings. Do they still count as leprechauns? Now we're arguing definitions.
Yes, but arguing definitions is irrelevant. It is a red herring.

Although the Leprechaun Test makes expedient use of the question "Do leprechauns exist?", that is not an invitation to parse the test question itself for alternate meanings.

As explained in the parent thread, the question is intended to mean: Are there actual flesh-and-blood magical little beings running around in the world?

This is the stipulative definition, and launching into contrarian interpretations of the mere words is counterproductive.

[Piggy]

So when I say, "This garage contains a completely undetectable dragon" and you say "This garage contains no dragons of any kind," we're not disagreeing.
Oh, yes, we are!

If we are not disagreeing, what then gives me the right to present your firm belief in undetectable dragons as evidence of your state of mind at trial?

And I don't say that lightly; I am dead serious. The whole point of orange skepticism is to take the final step of pulling our heads out of our textbooks and planting ourselves firmly in the world-as-is (which the only world that matters to me) before finalizing our conclusions.

If we are not disagreeing, then what about these analogous claims:

"The world is permeated by an undisprovable God."

"There is no God of any kind in this world."

[tsg]

Gotta admit, that puzzles me. Where do you get the impression that "fear of 'giving up ground'" is a motivation? What ground?

Oddly enough, you answered that yourself in a later post (emphasis mine):

To put any actual credence in the green margin of doubt in these cases -- to actually be open to the possibility that evidence showing that UDIGs, leprechauns, or Roy's black dog were real -- is to have at least a toe in the castle in the sky.

What I mean by "fear of 'giving up ground'" is the fear of refusing to say it is impossible somehow lending credence to the claim. You appear to be vastly overstating the level of doubt present in the green's mind when he says "it cannot be conclusively proven false". I can have zero doubt of the falseness of a claim without having to convince myself of its impossibility. That is, I can be certain it isn't true even if I can't be certain that it can't be true. Taking the extra step to "impossible" is simply unnecessary.

[Piggy]

Btw, my last post above is the answer to the previous "Why does it matter?" posts.

[Piggy]

What I mean by "fear of 'giving up ground'" is the fear of refusing to say it is impossible somehow lending credence to the claim.
I certainly believe that stopping short of asserting falsity does lend credence to the claim. How could it not? The "fear" bit, however, smacks of the playground retort "What're you afaid of?"

I can have zero doubt of the falseness of a claim without having to convince myself of its impossibility. That is, I can be certain it isn't true even if I can't be certain that it can't be true.
I do not see the difference here.

If you admit, as Sagan does in the thought experiment, that we must be open to the possibility of further evidence, then I don't understand how it's possible to "have zero doubt of the falseness of a claim".

I don't understand the difference between certainty that a claim "isn't true" and certainty that a claim "can't be true" unless the former refers to the claim itself and the latter refers to scientific and logical theories underlying the claim.

From the orange perspective, logical and scientific impossibility are not necessarily asserted by an assertion of the falsity of the claim. So an orange assertion of falsity should not be equated with an argument for logical and scientific impossibility.

[Piggy]

You appear to be vastly overstating the level of doubt present in the green's mind when he says "it cannot be conclusively proven false".
I doubt it.

In fact, I have already said that it is a mere homeophathic level of doubt.

But if the green skeptic asserts that this margin of doubt is enough to have any real-world meaning whatsoever -- if it stops anywhere short of falsity -- the social and political impact may be very real indeed.

[Piggy]

Just to extend the analogy, there are levels of homeopathic dilution that are not below the level of one molecule[1]. These dilutions will have the substance present but at levels so low they may as well not be there. The green position at this point would be to say, "yes, they are there, but completely ineffective" where the orange position would be to say "no, they aren't there."
The term "homeopathic levels of doubt" is pure metaphor/analogy.

If there's a chance that a molecule or two of active ingredient would, by random chance, still remain in an actual homeopathic dilution, an orange skeptic would not be reasonable in claiming that there were actually no molecules of active ingredient in any bottle of homeopathic remedy.

Yes, all analogies break down. That's why it's wise to keep in mind that they're just analogies.

[Piggy]

The problem I have with this line of thinking is that while the origins of the claim may not offer any evidence for it, they certainly can't be said as evidence against it.
The orange position is that they certainly can, keeping in mind the difference between "evidence" and "sufficient evidence".

Tex's thumbprint on the gate button at the Tate residence was not sufficient evidence of the Manson family's guilt in the Tate-LaBianca slayings -- but it certainly was evidence.

A record of habitual deceit is not sufficient evidence that televangelist Peter Popov is lying when he says he can heal the sick by the laying on of hands, but it certainly is evidence.

[Piggy]

But someone saying it doesn't make the claim itself any less likely to be true.

If I were to say, "I'm making this up. There's a dragon in my garage." it doesn't become less likely that there is a dragon in my garage than it was before I said that.
Well, technically no, because the likelihood is zero either way.

But consider this example:

A close friend calls you on the phone and says, "I need a place to stay. I got caught cheating on my wife." He then starts sobbing.

Or, a close friend calls you on the phone and says, "I need a place to stay. I got caught cheating on my wife.... April fool!"

Which is less likely to be true?

[Piggy]

Again, the (tiny) chance that always existed of an invisible black dog being in your back yard was not decreased by the fact that your step-father hallucinated one.
No such tiny chance ever existed, except in some theoretical space that is not the world I live in.

The chance that there is an invisible black dog that your step father alone could see was not decreased by the fact that he had brain cancer, and was likely to be having hallucinations.
True, but again, only because the chance was zero to begin with.

However, the chances of his hallucinating a black dog and therefore making an ardent false claim of seeing a black dog were enormously increased by the fact that he had brain cancer.

This is why an examination of the rhetorical context of a claim is of real practical value.

[Santa666]

I doubt it.

In fact, I have already said that it is a mere homeophathic level of doubt.

But if the green skeptic asserts that this margin of doubt is enough to have any real-world meaning whatsoever -- if it stops anywhere short of falsity -- the social and political impact may be very real indeed.

What would be an example of a "green" skeptic having a margin of doubt, that, while not quite landing on the "impossibility" square, still leaves an opening for the presentation of new evidence, having "very real social and political impact?"


Santa

[Piggy]

What would be an example of a "green" skeptic having a margin of doubt, that, while not quite landing on the "impossibility" square, still leaves an opening for the presentation of new evidence, having "very real social and political impact?"
The contention that atheism is a faith, and that unbelievers themselves admit it.

[Wheezebucket]

I gotta tell ya, on first glance it looks like I would personally lean towards the orange camp myself. At least so far.

Then again, I'm still learning just what exactly each color entails. See you again when I finish the other thread!

[Santa666]

The contention that atheism is a faith, and that unbelievers themselves admit it.

Please forgive an old man for his curiosity. But how does that apply here. Please enlighten me how your example applies to being a "green" skeptic versus being an "orange" skeptic.

[athon]

I've reread all this a couple of times, and still can't quite grasp what the precise nature of the argument is.

It feels as if the different flavours of skepticism are, as somebody already pointed out, a difference between being pragmatic and ideal.

If we had the ability to read 'The Great Book of Knowledge', which had the answers to everything in the universe, then we could eventually find absolutes for everything. As no such thing is known to exist, we have to rely on being pragmatic and admit that we possess no access to absolute knowledge.

In other words, as the original Skepticoi originally believed, we can have no certainties, just probabilities. I used to answer a lot of my student's questions with 'it's possible, but not probable', to get them used to the idea of science being about things being likely or unlikely.

I like looking at it this way (does that mean I can have my own colour now?):

We can only have confidence in information. I can have full confidence, no confidence, and a spectrum in between. Information is subsequetly used to build a picture of the universe, which is used to make decisions or create understanding of our observations.

Confidence relies on there existing an objective universe that is independent of my will and subjected to rules that are relatively consistent from moment to moment. In other words, the system falls down if you don't agree with either of these things. And oddly, even in this, I only have a degree of confidence (one that is so close to being 100%, it's not even worth arguing at the moment).

While ideally, an objective reality exists where there is absolute 'yay' or 'nay', we have no current means of assessing it. Where does that leave us? With degrees of confidence in what we do know.

What am I missing?

Athon

[athon]

So now I ask you -- what are the chances of Ernie's offer being legit?

A: Zero. And not a fraction more. Any theoretical doubt is at a homeopathic dilution that reality cannot sustain.

That doesn't mean that all ad hominem arguments are worth considering. Take, for example, the canard used by creationists, when they find irrelevant errors in Darwin's writing -- such as his discussion of the chronological relationship between swim bladders and lungs -- and claim his theory must therefore be wrong.

But rejecting all investigation into the credibility of the person(s) making a claim on the basis that it's "ad hominem" is either dogmatic or intellectually lazy.

Here's where I'm not getting it. In every example given, I can construct an unlikely scenario where doubt can be introduced. It might be extremely unlikely in terms of probability, but without any physical reason to be seen as 'P = 0'.

Therefore, how would any of these support the orange position which concludes that in some situations we can dismiss that last finite degree of 'unconfidence'?

Athon

[Piggy]

Please enlighten me how your example applies to being a "green" skeptic versus being an "orange" skeptic.
It doesn't. (Please bear with me.)

We're now 2 steps removed.

The distinction between green and orange varieties of skeptical inquiry is simply an issue of what types of evidence people recognize as valid when it comes to falsifying claims.

The question "Why does this matter?" isn't about the distinction between green and orange standards of evidence per se. Rather, it concerns the issue of: assuming the difference is real, is it significant? It is a question of the fallout, of the impact, of the difference, and not of the nature of the difference itself.

My primary focus, when I posted the parent thread, was identifying where certain debates among skeptics who have significantly different standards of evidence can be ended, when the disagreement comes down to axiomatic issues, and will never be solved by producing more evidence. But that is of rather limited importance.

However, if the green variety of skepticism is represented as the only valid brand of skepticism, one of the more significant impacts of that assertion is that it allows theists to claim, with some support from skeptical sources, that atheism is actually a faith.

Positing atheism as a faith, rather than an absence of faith, has enormous social and political implications, especially if there is evidence to back up the additional claim that "unbelievers" themselves admit that this is true. ("Here's what Carl Sagan says about a really ridiculous claim -- an invisible dragon in his garage.... If saying there's no dragon in your garage is a matter of faith, then certainly denying the existence of God is the biggest leap of faith known to man!")

The orange variety of skepticism, while not geared specifically toward the support of atheism, does not support the conclusion that disbelief in all un-disprovable claims must require a leap of faith.

[Piggy]

What am I missing?
I dunno. What are you saying? I don't see anything in your post that's specifically relevant to whether methods of analysis that are not strictly scientific or logical, such as examining a claim's rhetorical context, can ever be valid means of rationally falsifying a claim, or not -- which is what this thread is about.

[Piggy]

In every example given, I can construct an unlikely scenario where doubt can be introduced. It might be extremely unlikely in terms of probability, but without any physical reason to be seen as 'P = 0'.

Therefore, how would any of these support the orange position which concludes that in some situations we can dismiss that last finite degree of 'unconfidence'?
I don't know what "P = 0' means and I hope we can do without that kind of representation because you will quickly lose me if you stay on that tack. I'm a math idiot. Just so's you know.

Sure, in every scenario you can dream up as many implausible scenarios as you care to. But that's not the point. That's the toddler defense, as exemplified in post 4. The question is not whether theoretical/hypothetical doubt can be introduced through verbal gamesmanship, but whether it is rational in these cases to expect anyone to take it seriously.

To answer the last question, read the posts about crediting homeopathic levels of doubt, and about filling the gaps left by the purely scientific/logical model with other methods such as analysis of the rhetorical context of the claim.

[athon]

I dunno. What are you saying? I don't see anything in your post that's specifically relevant to whether methods of analysis that are not strictly scientific or logical, such as examining a claim's rhetorical context, can ever be valid means of rationally falsifying a claim, or not -- which is what this thread is about.

Non-scientific or non-logical means of examining a claim cannot produce a valid means of falsification. Some things are just not pragmatically falsifiable, even using science. Some things can only produce degrees of certainty.

Well, that was easy.

Athon

[athon]

I don't know what "P = 0' means and I hope we can do without that kind of representation because you will quickly lose me if you stay on that tack. I'm a math idiot. Just so's you know.

Sorry, it was my shorthand for 'probability equals zero'.

Sure, in every scenario you can dream up as many implausible scenarios as you care to. But that's not the point. That's the toddler defense, as exemplified in post 4. The question is not whether theoretical/hypothetical doubt can be introduced through verbal gamesmanship, but whether it is rational in these cases to expect anyone to take it seriously.

Ok, which is where you lose me, because I disagree. You're talking about doubt, even if it is tiny. Possible is possible, no matter how you cut it. Can we discount some possibilities? Indeed, because the likelihood is so small you just wouldn't waste time on it when you have a range of more likely scenarios at your disposal.

A once in a trillion year event is unlikely to happen tomorrow. I wouldn't even consider it happening, without reason. But it has happened once in a trillion years, so it's not 'impossible', and if on that day you gave a defined 'no, it would not occur', you would be wrong.

The difference is small, but significant. Any plausible scenario - not matter how 'toddler' or wordly - is still plausible, hence a degree of doubt is always present even if it is not practically significant.

To answer the last question, read the posts about crediting homeopathic levels of doubt, and about filling the gaps left by the purely scientific/logical model with other methods such as analysis of the rhetorical context of the claim.

I have, and either it's my poor understanding or poor explaining...or perhaps I do get it and the analysis of rhetorical context is simply only another means of contributing the confidence of one's understanding and not a means of reducing probability of a claim to zero. I'm happy for it to be any of the above.

I was wondering if you had another way of stating your position.

Athon

[Steven Howard]

Oh, yes, we are!

If we are not disagreeing, what then gives me the right to present your firm belief in undetectable dragons as evidence of your state of mind at trial?


I'm not sure you have that right. Is it a competency hearing, or are you impeaching me as a witness? Are you testifying in your capactiy as a mental health professional? In any event, you'd need to show how my belief in invisible garage dragons was relevant to the matter at hand.

Anyway, I stand by my earlier assertion that we almost never encounter such claims.


If we are not disagreeing, then what about these analogous claims:

"The world is permeated by an undisprovable God."

"There is no God of any kind in this world."

As it turns out, the Deist's God was the only example I could think of that's really analogous to Sagan's completely undetectable dragon. And therefore my answer doesn't change. Those two statement describe the same world.

[.13.]

This is also the orange position.

I know. My point was that there is no such weakness to green skepticism as you described.


In the case of leprechauns, as noted in post 4, understanding the full implications of the claim is part and parcel of examining it. Why is this? Because... if an unsupported claim, in order to be true, would require a sweeping paradigm shift in scientific thought, this means that there exists an enormous body of thoroughly vetted data against it.

But the paradigm shift is not evidence and shouldn't be used in that way. In science all knowledge is provisional. The paradigm shifts when there is evidence, claims are not rejected because they go against that paradigm. If a claim goes against the current paradigm it only means that evidence needed to support the claim must be stronger than if it didn't go against it, before the claim should be accepted.

Besides does the current paradigm contain all the knowledge in the universe?

First point: Do you know of any investigation of leprechauns which has shown an origin other than superstition and myth? That's all my post was saying -- when we examine the claim, we find origins purely in superstition and myth.

Second point: Yes, I know it's ad hominem. I freely admit that. Ad hominem arguments are not disallowed (though they are not necessarily allowed, depending on the argument) when evaluating a claim's context.
...
But rejecting all investigation into the credibility of the person(s) making a claim on the basis that it's "ad hominem" is either dogmatic or intellectually lazy.

But have we gone through all the knowledge there is or is it possible we might have missed something?

Being an informal logical fallacy I don't think orange methodology should accept ad hominems in its toolkit. Claims should be evaluated on their evidence.

Because the chance that he saw a dog is homeopathically slim, yet the green position stops short of declaring that it is impossible that he saw a dog. According to the green interpretation, I must in some way be open to the possibility of new evidence, or I can only "behave as if" he did not actually see a dog.

Why is it a bad thing to remain open to new evidence?

The green position is too weak because it admits doubt where there ought not be any. Orange skepticism claims that rational means exist to close the gap left by the purely logical/scientific investigation of a claim, which in some cases can erase the margin of doubt and allow positive falsification of the claim.

The truth is, in cases like the ones given, absolute certainty in real-world terms is possible. To put any actual credence in the green margin of doubt in these cases -- to actually be open to the possibility that evidence showing that UDIGs, leprechauns, or Roy's black dog were real -- is to have at least a toe in the castle in the sky.

Remember that it is only your assertion that there ought to be no doubt.

You have pointed out doubt as a flaw in green skepticism: But why is it a flaw? Doubt is an important part of skepticism and science isn't it?

On the other hand indoctrination is a flaw in orange skepticism. Orange skepticism is not skeptical of itself. And there is also atleast one informal logical fallacy in the orange toolkit.

So why do you consider orange as a better method than green?

[Roboramma]

Piggy, I'm curious. What practical difference do you see between orange and green skepticism?

Faced with a rediculous claim, a green will say, "That isn't true/doesn't exist." if forced, he'll go on to say, "Yes, it could exist, but the chance is so unlikely that it isn't worth talking about. At least, until new evidence is presented."
An Orange will say, "That isn't true/doesn't exist." If forced he will go on to say, "No, I can't prove it, but I still know for certain it doesn't exist."

Okay. But is there any practical difference between these viewpoints? Or is this mearly a philosophical difference of opinion about the nature of certainty?

The only practical difference that I can see would happen if new evidence in support of the initial claim did appear. Until then, the two are practically indistinguishable.
And in that (unlikely) circumstance, the green appears to be the better position. Of course the orange's position is that this circumstance is impossible, so in his view orange and green are in practice identical. (Unless there is another difference I've missed, which I think is relatively likely).

PS Sorry for the hit and run, I intend to respond to your posts about the use of rhetorical context, but got distracted in the middle of my response and decided to try again later. :)

[Gaga]

[...]Positing atheism as a faith, rather than an absence of faith, has enormous social and political implications, especially if there is evidence to back up the additional claim that "unbelievers" themselves admit that this is true. ("Here's what Carl Sagan says about a really ridiculous claim -- an invisible dragon in his garage.... If saying there's no dragon in your garage is a matter of faith, then certainly denying the existence of God is the biggest leap of faith known to man!") [...]I start to understand how you are reasoning, but I'm not sure I get which implications are you talking about. e.g. If the scenario is that we cannot tell the difference between "there's God" and "there's no God" both positions require to make a leap of faith.
If a believer tells me that I concede the possibility of the existence of a superior being I have to point out that this being we are talking about hasn't any influence in the real world and then it might as well not be there. I don't know which of the two get out better from this situation...
I suppose also that there is a line that can be drawn between what we can entertain hypothetically for the sake of discussion and what in practice we can dismiss. I know that even a fabricated claim could coincidentally be true, but the concilience of lack of evidence, context, etc. will make me reject it and go on with the rest of my life. what does it make me? hypothetically green, practically orange? I'll go for an elegant brown...

[Piggy]

Piggy, I'm curious. What practical difference do you see between orange and green skepticism?

Faced with a rediculous claim, a green will say, "That isn't true/doesn't exist." if forced, he'll go on to say, "Yes, it could exist, but the chance is so unlikely that it isn't worth talking about. At least, until new evidence is presented."
An Orange will say, "That isn't true/doesn't exist." If forced he will go on to say, "No, I can't prove it, but I still know for certain it doesn't exist."
Lots o' good stuff here this morning. I can't reply to all of it b/c I have to get to work.

On this question, let me put it in the orange perspective....

If there's no difference between the orange position of "I don't have logical or scientific proof that it doesn't exist, but all things considered I know enough to say for certain it doesn't exist" and the green position... then what's all this about being open to new evidence or leaving some shred of doubt, no matter how small?

If the margin of doubt in the green position is so slight that there really is no difference between it and the orange "No", then how can you say it's real? And if a green "No" involves also claiming that there is a real possibility of new evidence, it's not absolute "No" -- it's an extremely strong "unlikely".

Some have dismissed the notion of being closed to the possibility of new evidence. But let's look at some examples that I hope oranges and greens both agree are disproven.

It is not rational or reasonable to insist that a person should accept that there may one day be evidence showing that the Nazi Holocaust was actually a hoax perpetrated by "the Jews", or that the moon landings have been faked, or that miners in Siberia recorded the voices of people in Hell.

That's what it means to get to absolute "No".

The green position maintains that there are 2 tools that can be used to get all the way to "No": Logic (including math) and scientific investigation.

The orange position maintains that other tools can be employed in certain cases if these don't get you there, especially if it's simply a matter of verbal trickery built into the claim.

[Roboramma]

Re the whole atheism thing. It's not very hard to say, "No, I can't disprove God, but I also can't prove that dogs exist. When you start doubting the existence of dogs, I'll start worrying about the existence of god."

Or any of millions of permutations of that arguement. Again, saying that you don't know something with absolute certainty, and saying that you can't make any conclusions based on the evidence presented are two wildly different statements.

edit: by the way piggy, I just want to say that while I still don't agree with your arguements, it's very cool how much thought you're putting into this thread. There are a lot of posters that you're having to respond to all at once, so good job there. I think some trolls could learn a very useful lesson here.

[tsg]

I certainly believe that stopping short of asserting falsity does lend credence to the claim. How could it not?

Because simply being possible doesn't mean it is true and not being able to prove it impossible doesn't make it more likely to be true. The person making the claim is responsible for supporting it with evidence. When evidence is lacking they often respond with "well, it's possible". It may well be possible, but that's not what he said. He said "it is". They are distinctly separate things. Being impossible only support the assertion "it isn't". Being possible doesn't support the assertion "it is".

The "fear" bit, however, smacks of the playground retort "What're you afaid of?"

It was not my intent. Let me rephrase it as an unwillingness to concede what really isn't a concession to being with.


I do not see the difference here.

If you admit, as Sagan does in the thought experiment, that we must be open to the possibility of further evidence, then I don't understand how it's possible to "have zero doubt of the falseness of a claim".

I don't have to be certain a claim can't happen to know that it didn't. A lack of evidence coupled with an extraordinary claim is sufficient to dismiss it.

I don't understand the difference between certainty that a claim "isn't true" and certainty that a claim "can't be true" unless the former refers to the claim itself and the latter refers to scientific and logical theories underlying the claim.

From the orange perspective, logical and scientific impossibility are not necessarily asserted by an assertion of the falsity of the claim. So an orange assertion of falsity should not be equated with an argument for logical and scientific impossibility.

Going back to the Leprechaun test, you stated that not only are you certain that leprechauns do not exist, but there can be no evidence, ever, to support their existence. The first says "it isn't true", the second, at least to me, says "it can't be true".

[tsg]

It is not rational or reasonable to insist that a person should accept that there may one day be evidence showing that the Nazi Holocaust was actually a hoax perpetrated by "the Jews", or that the moon landings have been faked, or that miners in Siberia recorded the voices of people in Hell.

That's what it means to get to absolute "No".

But in each of these cases we have direct evidence that the claims being made are not true. That is not the case in something like the Leprechaun Test where the only evidence of the non-existence is a lack of evidence of existence.

[Piggy]

But in each of these cases we have direct evidence that the claims being made are not true. That is not the case in something like the Leprechaun Test where the only evidence of the non-existence is a lack of evidence of existence.
I know that. I thought I made that clear, but perhaps not.

I offered these examples precisely because oranges and greens could both agree that they've been disproven.

The point is simply to remind folks that denying the possibility of future evidence is not inherently irrational.

So, if skeptics who accept that certain methods of inquiry into a claim -- in addition to purely scientific and logical ones -- are valid have determined that a claim is false via those methods, then it's rational for them to assert that no new evidence will be produced.

It's no use pointing out to them (us/me) that one cannot deny the possibility of new evidence.

Once you get to falsity, it would be irrational to simultaneously admit the possibility of new evidence.

That was the purpose of these examples.

The difference of opinion comes down to whether these other methods have any validity. Greens say they don't. Oranges say they do.

I haven't read most of the posts since about 11:00 last night EDT, just a couple that caught my eye. But so far, I haven't yet seen an objection to orange methodology beyond "Thou shalt not". Perhaps it's there. Perhaps it will change my mind. I'm on break now, will read more at lunch.

[Piggy]

Those two statement describe the same world.
Well, not where I'm from they don't, and I believe you'd only have to do a little asking around to find that out.

However, I'd like to take the issue of theism off the table.

Not because I don't think it's valid -- after all, I raised it -- but because it's not central and could derail the thread.

If someone wants to start another splinter thread on that topic, I'd be happy to chime in.

But for the purposes of this thread, I'll concede the point and stipulate that this question does not in fact have any significant social and political implications.

Instead, I will stick to the original theme that sparked the Leprechaun thread and this one: that differences in what is accepted as valid methods of skeptical inquiry are meaningful; And more specifically for this thread: that methods beyond pure logic and scientific investigation, such as analysis of a claim's context, can be valid methods of falsifying certain claims that are not or cannnot be disproven by the scientific method or dismissed on the basis of pure logic.

I look forward to reading more of the above comments, but for now it's back to work.

[Piggy]

Non-scientific or non-logical means of examining a claim cannot produce a valid means of falsification. Some things are just not pragmatically falsifiable, even using science. Some things can only produce degrees of certainty.

Well, that was easy.
Yes, it was. You have summed up the green position in the first sentence, and made assertions accepted by both methods in sentences 2 and 3. Quite simple.

[Stir]

* "It's unlikely" -- That doesn't cut it. Gotta go all the way to "unsupported" and "contradicts established scientific findings"

* "It's unpopular" -- Also way too short of the mark. Where I live, evolution and the Big Bang are highly unpopular, and relativity and quantum mechanics are practically unknown. But the orange POV would find no reason to doubt them. On the other hand, orange skeptics would have no grounds for dismissing string theory as falsifiable, despite the fact that it's not popular with scientists and virtually unknown among the general population. But we would go to "No" on creationism, which is enormously popular in the US.

* "It's inconvenient" -- I actually can't figure out the referent for that one.

* "It does not agree with my personal perception of the way things are" -- That is the most likely valid, and perhaps fatal, criticism of the entire construct.

* "Application of these 'rational methods' allows total elimination of all doubt" -- Yup. As long as we're talking about real-world doubt (and not doubt on paper) which is the only kind that matters to me.

However, you've failed to mention the most important point of the OPs, which is an accurate description of the conditions and methods used. I do believe that analysis of the rhetorical context of the claim is a valid skeptical tool -- even tho it is neither purely scientific nor purely logical.

Furthermore, I do consider such analysis rational. Therefore, I reject the green claim that there is nothing in addition to scientific method and logical modeling that can close the gap in extreme cases such as leprechauns, UDIGs, or Roy's black dog.

Piggy, thanks for your comments. I suspect we will never agree on this, but let me make a few points anyway.

I readily admit to mistating and exagerating your methods, partly because I wanted to make our differences clear and partly because I wanted to avoid bickering over semantics and splitting ifinitesimal differences in meaning.

Where I said "unlikely" you say "contradicts established scientific findings". I doubt you apply your criterion strictly: for example, I very much doubt that scientific findings specifically deny the existence of leprechauns ... particularly when the precise definition of 'leprechaun' is unclear (when another poster mentioned the lack of precision, you dismissed his point without adequate argument, IMO).

Where I said "unpopular" it seems to me to reasonably accurately describe part of your evaluation of rhetorical context.

Where I said "inconvenient" I was referring to your saying that the truth of the proposition in question would require revising a large body of scientific theory ... inconvenient, but not without precedent and arguably one of the critical and important features of scientific thinking.

And as to the validity of an individual's perception of the world, let me cite Ambrose Bierce, in his "Devil's Dictionary':
MAD, adj.
Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that themselves are sane. For illustration, this present (and illustrious) lexicographer is no firmer in the faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any madhouse in the land; yet for aught he knows to the contrary, instead of the lofty occupation that seems to him to be engaging his powers he may really be beating his hands against the window bars of an asylum and declaring himself Noah Webster, to the innocent delight of many thoughtless spectators.

And further to that point, the cognitive processes by which we perceive reality are complicated beyond belief, and full of surprises. You place a lot of importance on the 'world-as-is' (you describe it as the real world and the only world that matters) ... as though that is a clear cut thing that "exists" independent of the perceiver. Many would doubt the correctness of that point of view.

Your analysis of rhetorical context you assert (in another post ... I haven't figured out how to insert multiple quotes into one reply) is valuable in evaluating claims ... and I agree completely. But (you knew there would be a but) this discussion is not about evaluating claims but about determining facts. And while the context of a claim helps me in evaluating how seriously to take the claim and the claimant, and how to respond, it in no way affects the underlying facts (whether underlying facts even "exist" opens a debate on the nature of reality, another topic which adds more confusion and, dare I say it, doubt).

A final point: you have stated several times (with differing words) that green is invalid because it admits doubt where there should be none, and I questioned that in my post. But isn't this just a way of saying "orange is right and green is wrong" ... i.e. a statement of your position rather than an argument for it. I can just as well say orange must be invalid because it eliminates doubt where there should be some ... this is not evidence or argument, simply a restatement of my green belief.

Thanks again for a stimulating thread.

[Gaga]

[...]Instead, I will stick to the original theme that sparked the Leprechaun thread and this one: that differences in what is accepted as valid methods of skeptical inquiry are meaningful; And more specifically for this thread: that methods beyond pure logic and scientific investigation, such as analysis of a claim's context, can be valid methods of falsifying certain claims that are not or cannnot be disproven by the scientific method or dismissed on the basis of pure logic.[...]
maybe after a day's work my 3 neurons are not doing their job, but I'm somewhat puzzled here...
If you accept this, shouldn't you also accept the contrary? I mean that claims that cannot be proven by scientific method or logic should be accepted on the basis of the context and so on?

[JamesDillon]

Piggy,

Great thread; I've enjoyed reading through it. Sorry I haven't contributed yet; I've been traveling on business for the last few days and my access to the Internet has been sporadic. I have quite a few things to say in response, which I'll break into hopefully convenient bite-sized chunks.

I. Rhetorical and Historical Context

If I understand it correctly, your argument is that, where science and logic cannot provide absolute certainty as to the non-existence of a phenomenon, such assurance can be achieved by reference to the rhetorical and historic contexts in which the existence of the phenomenon is asserted? Specifically, you argue in the case of leprechauns that because their existence is claimed historically only in mythology, and in the present day only by people who have been indoctrinated to believe in them and whose views are considered on the fringe of society, when coupled with the lack of empirical evidence for the existence of leprechauns, we can therefore be absolutely certain that leprechauns do not exist?

That makes no sense whatsoever to me. The fact that leprechauns are a "fringe" belief, and exist largely in mythology, can certainly be taken to lower the probability that leprechauns exist in reality, but you've provided no explanation for how you get from "low probability" to "absolutely not." Is it conceivable that beliefs for which the primary evidence is mythological may nevertheless be true? (Yes, it is. The city of Troy was considered purely mythological in the ninetheenth century until Schliemann discovered the ruins by following the directions in the Iliad.) If that's the case, then this fact does not establish absolute certainty as to the non-existence of a phenomenon. It only provides a rational basis for assigning a low probability to the reality of the phenomenon in question.

The same goes for the "rhetorical context," i.e., the argument that beliefs espoused by groups outside the mainstream can be said with absolute certainty to be false when no corroborating empirical evidence exists. Is it likely that the Scientologists are correct, or that your stepfather actually saw an invisible black dog? It is highly unlikely, but in neither case does the rhetorical context move us from the realm of low probability into the realm of absolute certainty. In fact, I submit that the truth value of a proposition exists entirely independently of the individual asserting that proposition. Facts about the claimant might be relevant to assigning a probability to the claim (implausible claims made by someone we trust can rationally be regarded as more likely to be true than implausible claims made by a person we know to be a liar, or not in his/her right mind), but I can't conceive how the identity of the claimant could ever establish with absolute certainty the truth or falsity of the claim.

Finally, you said in a few places regarding this issue that green skepticism artificially creates doubt where there is none, and compared it to the homeopathic practice of diluting a solution until not a single molecule of the active ingredient is present. I don't think that this is a fair or accurate analogy, since doubt, an abstract concept, is not atomistic as matter is, such that it can be entirely removed by "dilution" with more and more empirical evidence.
II. Analysis of the Claim's Ramifications, or Comparison of True/False Alternatives

Again, this is a purely probabilistic criterion. The fact that thousands of people would have to be involved in fabricating the existence of China makes the fabrication hypothesis exceedingly unlikely-- it does not in any way establish absolute certainty as to the non-existence of a China conspiracy!

To illustrate this point, here's an even stronger claim which I'll call the Truman Hypothesis: I am unwittingly the star of a reality television show in which every moment of my life is broadcast to an audience. Every person in my life is an actor hired by the studio to interact with me in the pretend world they have created. All my life has been spent inside this studio which I perceive as the real world; whenever I think I'm traveling to a new place, the studio executives sedate me, hastily change the sets, and implant memories of traveling in my brain.

Is this true? I'd have to be bloody bonkers to believe that it is. Can I be absolutely certain that it's false? No, I can't. As with all things, the most I can say is that the Truman Hypothesis has a very, very low probability of being true; so low that I am rationally justified in acting as if certain that it is false. And if I can't be certain about that, obviously I can't be certain of any proposition by reference to the analysis of ramifications criterion that you suggest.

III. Sagan's Dragon

Your criticism of Sagan's Dragon overlooks the key distinction between deductive and inductive conclusions. The article you quote suggests that Sagan's view is self-contradictory in that
Sagan's view digs a trap for itself; he offers the impossibility of absolute certainty as an absolute certainty.

Sagan's implicit argument for the provisional nature of scientific knowledge is based on deductive reasoning-- i.e., it rests on a conceptual analysis of the scientific method. Deductive reasoning, from general principles to specific instances, is capable of deriving conclusions with absolute certainty and forms the basis of our mathematical knowledge (this is why we can know that 1+1=2 as a universal, absolute truth rather than as merely provisional knowledge). Inductive reasoning, such as the scientific method, which progresses from individual instances to general principles, is at most capable of establishing the probability of a conclusion, not its absolute certainty. (Hume argued that inductive reasoning can't even establish probability, which is a fun problem that I'm spending a lot of time thinking about lately, but is not really relevant here).
Sagan's argument is not something like: "Every conclusion based on the scientific method so far has been merely provisional, therefore all conclusions based on science must be provisional." That is an inductive argument which would be incapable of establishing its conclusion with absolute certainty. Rather, Sagan's argument is that the scientific method is, a priori, and by its very nature, incapable of providing more than provisional knowledge. This is a deductive conclusion and therefore the criticism in the article you cite is not valid against it.

IV. Verbal Trickery and Clever Leprechauns
In my last two points I'm going to reply to your responses to some arguments I made in the other thread; I saved these for this thread since you indicated that you didn't want to debate the merits of orange v. green there.

In response to your claim to absolute certainty of the non-existence of leprechauns, I argued:
[W]hat if the leprechauns are just so clever that we haven't been able to catch them yet, and they're smart enough to avoid all of our leprechaun-hunting devices? The obvious response is, "That's ridiculous." Of course it is-- at least, believing in leprechauns on that basis would be absurdly irrational. But, whatever level of probability you want to assign to that hypothesis, you have to concede that it is above zero. Ergo, our level of certainty in the non-existence of leprechauns has to be discounted by that .000000001% likelihood of their existence.

In response to the Clever Leprechaun Hypothesis, you said
absolutely do not have to concede that the level of probability is above zero. Why on earth should I have to concede something as ridiculous as that? This claim is factum ex anus -- it is totally whipped up on the spot, invented as a wholly unsupported and unsupportable verbal trick to try to rhetorically corner a perfectly rational belief which all sane people share. It deserves no respect whatsoever, unless one has one's head so far into one's abstractions that the real world ceases to matter. And for me, the real world never ceases to matter.
I don't see how dismissing a valid counterargument as a "verbal trick" gets you very far in your quest for certainty. Yes, of course it is an "unsupported and unsupportable" argument that I "whipped up on the spot." Absolutely. It's also an irrebuttable epistemological obstacle to your claim of absolute certainty in the non-existence of leprechauns. This is the crux of the matter, and of green skepticism: if a claim is not falsifiable, then it is rationally impossible to say with absolute certainty that it is or is not true. The Clever Leprechaun Hypothesis gives us no reason whatsoever to believe that clever leprechauns exist, but it does demonstrate that we can't be absolutely certain that they don't exist. You're going to have to do better than a dismissive claim of "verbal trickery" to get around that.

V. Brains in Vats and the Uncertain Nature of Sensory Impressions
Another of my arguments from the last thread was as follows:
At the risk of opening up a new can of worms, it might help to illuminate my commitment to the green flavor of skepticism to explain that my view of the impossibility of demonstrating with absolute certainty the non-existence of any external entity is a logical outgrowth of my view regarding the impossibility of demonsrating with absolute certainty the existence of any external entity. Yes, this is brain in a vat stuff again; I realize that it has been debated ad nauseam in several other threads, and I'm not particularly eager to revive that debate here, but the fact remains that the weight of intellectual history at least since Descartes suggests pretty persuasively that we simply can't be absolutely certain that any of the sensory impressions that we experience are accurate reflections of external reality (or even that there is any such thing as external reality!) We are of course rationally justified in acknowledging this omnipresent barrier to absolute knowledge and proceeding as if certain that our sensory impressions reflect external reality, but with that insurmountable epistemological obstacle in place, it seems to me that we are only ever rationally justified in saying, "It is extremely likely, on the basis of my consistent sensory impressions, that (,e.g.,) my dog exists as an external entity distinct from my sensory impressions of it." If the most we can ever claim is a very high probability that the objects of ordinary experience do exist in the external world, how can we possibly be justified in claiming absolute certainty that some objects do not exist?

In response, you said:
I am prepared to argue that brain-in-a-vat thought experiments are irrelevant, that the possibility of the non-existence of external reality is bunk, and that the unreliability of sensory impressions actually mitigates toward the strong orange position. But you'll have to wait for the new thread.

Unless I've missed it in reading through this thread, I don't think you've addressed this point yet. I can't imagine how the unreliability of sensory impressions supports orange skepticism, but I'm eager to hear your argument.

[hammegk]

"The world is permeated by an undisprovable God."

"There is no God of any kind in this world."

As it turns out, the Deist's God was the only example I could think of that's really analogous to Sagan's completely undetectable dragon. And therefore my answer doesn't change. Those two statement describe the same world.Of course, since one world, "what-is" is all we've got.

What they are are absolutely incompatible worldviews, either one one of which provides a necessary basis for all subsequent thought and logic. Chose a bit of both, welcome to dualism.

[Overman]

Great thread.

On an unrelated self promoting sidenote.....
I was very inspired by "The Demon Haunted World" and you can hear the results here:

http://www.mixposure.com/song.php?songid=25203

Enjoy!!!

[Piggy]

You're talking about doubt, even if it is tiny. Possible is possible, no matter how you cut it.
Well, the crux of the argument is this....

When it comes to leprechauns, UDIGs, and Roy's black dog, there is only doubt or possibility if you stop at the logical/scientific model, which is all that is recognized as valid under the green version of skeptical inquiry.

So yes, greens see some iota of doubt here.

The orange method admits the validity of other tools, such as examination of rhetorical context. When the claim is viewed in its full context, according to the orange POV, then this iota of doubt is shown to be an artifact of the logical/scientific model itself that is unsupportable in the world as we know it.

Because that level of doubt is "homeopathic" (only sustainable on paper, but not in reality) then any real-world level of doubt vanishes, and we get to absolute "No".

[Piggy]

The difference is small, but significant. Any plausible scenario - not matter how 'toddler' or wordly - is still plausible, hence a degree of doubt is always present even if it is not practically significant.
But that's the difference b/t the orange and green views.

The orange view does not find toddler defenses -- such as the string of unsupported and irrational dodges in the Sagan's Dragon example -- to be plausible.

If the initial claim is unsupported and violates known physical laws, and each attempt to test the claim is met with an equally unsupported and outlandish special case to deflect it, and there is an alternate rational explanation for why this person is making this claim (other than it being true), then plausibility is not granted.

[JamesDillon]

Because that level of doubt is "homeopathic" (only sustainable on paper, but not in reality) then any real-world level of doubt vanishes, and we get to absolute "No".

It seems like you're equivocating a bit with your distinction between "real-world" and (presumably) "not-real-world." Green skeptics admit that for all practical purposes, the level of doubt in the non-existence of an entity can be reduced to a level indistinguishable from zero. The debate I thought we were having lies purely in the "abstract" world of ideas, where the difference between 99.9999999% and 100% is an insurmountable chasm. If you admit the existence of a lingering, "academic" doubt that has no appreciable effect on our "real-world" calculations, then it seems that you and I believe the same thing.

[Piggy]

I was wondering if you had another way of stating your position.
Maybe.

Let's try this....

The "green" position, as exemplified in Sagan's example in post 2, holds that if a claim -- no matter how absurd -- has not been or cannot be disproven via scientific method, and cannot be dismissed on the basis of pure logic, the only reasonable response is to dismiss it provisionally as unproven, yet be open to the possibility of new evidence.

The "orange" position is that -- in cases such as Sagan's Dragon, leprechauns, or Roy's black dog -- no unreasonable or irrational leap is required to close the gap of doubt left by purely logical/scientific inquiry; that it is possible to falsify the claim in the absence of scientific/logical disproof by examining, for example, the ramifications of the claim, and the context in which the claim is made.

What this comes down to is a difference of opinion regarding what methods are considered valid for skeptical inquiry. Greens and oranges agree on the validity of science and logic, but greens do not agree with oranges on the validity of other methods.

Therefore, when a debate comes down to only a matter of what sort of evidence is acceptable, agreement will not be acheived by continuing to trade evidence. At that point, we must agree to disagree.

From the green point of view it is irrational to affirm without any reservation whatsoever that leprechauns, UDIGs, and Roy's black dog do not exist.

From the orange point of view, it is irrational and unreasonable to insist that we must be open to the possibility of new evidence for leprechauns, UDIGs, and Roy's black dog.

[Overman]

"In the case of leprechauns, as noted in post 4, understanding the full implications of the claim is part and parcel of examining it. Why is this? Because... if an unsupported claim, in order to be true, would require a sweeping paradigm shift in scientific thought, this means that there exists an enormous body of thoroughly vetted data against it."

There was a time when a "so-far" unsupported claim that required a sweeping paradigm shift in scientific thought became a break through. There are still people who try to disprove relativity...

There probably will be a breakthrough unexpected again.

Green keeps this possibility open. Orange seems to rely on what we alrealdy know...

[Piggy]

I know. My point was that there is no such weakness to green skepticism as you described.
Well, the conxns are getting a little hard to follow, but it certainly seems that this weakness has been admitted to by greens on this thread -- however, greens probably do not consider it a weakness.

But just so's I understand you....

Are you saying that the green methodology does not demand real-world doubt, or a real-world obligation to be open to new evidence -- in cases such as Sagan's Dragon?

From my POV, building untestability into a claim such as that is a mere rhetorical trick. To my mind, if a methodology obliges us to stop short of an unqualified "No" merely because an absurd claim is phrased in such a way that it is defined as un-disprovable, that's a weakness.

On the other hand, you may be totally comfortable with that.

But in the world I live in, there ain't no dragons, there ain't no leprechauns, and any theory that says with a straight face that I have any obligation to allow any doubt about that is flawed.

[Piggy]

But the paradigm shift is not evidence and shouldn't be used in that way.
It is in my book.

Suppose a kid comes up to you with what looks like an empty soda bottle. He tells you it's full of carbon dioxide. Do you believe him?

Maybe not, but you can't say he's wrong. Maybe it is, why not?

On the other hand, suppose a kid comes up to you with what looks like an empty soda bottle. He tells you it's full of carbon dioxide atoms.

You try to correct him, but he says, no, this is atomic carbon dioxide.

You offer to test it, but -- just as in Sagan's example -- at every turn he comes up with a reason why performing the test will instantly make the atomic carbon dioxide decompose into molecular carbon dioxide.

Do you admit any shred of doubt about the falsity of his untestable claim?

I don't. And part of the reason is that, in order to be true, it would require us to rethink modern science from the ground up.

In the case of unsupported claims, the existence of tested and accepted scientific paradigms opposing them is most definitely evidence against them.


claims are not rejected because they go against that paradigm.
Agreed.

But we're back to the difference between "evidence" and "sufficient evidence". Just because evidence is not sufficient does not mean it should be dismissed as evidence altogether.

[Piggy]

There was a time when a "so-far" unsupported claim that required a sweeping paradigm shift in scientific thought became a break through. There are still people who try to disprove relativity...
Are you saying that relativity was proposed at a time when it was wholly unsupported?

The theory of relativity, as I understand its development, arose directly from an accurate understanding of the full implications of existing theories and their interactions.

I doubt there was ever a time, therefore, when relativity was unsupported. Unproven yes. Unsupported no.

[Piggy]

Being an informal logical fallacy I don't think orange methodology should accept ad hominems in its toolkit. Claims should be evaluated on their evidence.
I, on the other hand, think it's absurd not to ask who's making a claim, and why, under the circumstances that the claim itself has no discernable merit beyond being un-disprovable.

Lunch is over. See y'all again after supper.

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

sorry to interrupt, I just want to paste here this words again, Im considering to use them as a signature. (note; Im also posting this because I dont want to lose the thread)

"Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so."





now, please continue

[Roboramma]

In the case of unsupported claims, the existence of tested and accepted scientific paradigms opposing them is most definitely evidence against them.

Piggy, can I come back to something?

I wonder, do you think there are any "pardigm shifts" (I don't really like that term, but whatever) left in science?

Do you think that there are any true things that, if a 10 year old boy came to you and offered no way of proving them, and no reason for why he knew it, you would feel justified in dismissing as certainly not true?

Note, this doesn't address whether or not a 10 year old boy would know that and have the opportunity to make the claim (so I admit that if you accept that statement, it isn't necessarily a refutation of orange skepticism). I'm just wondering if this is where we disagree.

The reason I ask is that there certainly were things that, in the past, people would have looked at the same way you look at leprechauns, an orange skeptic would have veiwed them as certainly false. But now we know those things to be true. Of course, no one claimed they were true in the past, so any orange skeptics would not have made the mistake of dismissing those claims - they were never made to be dismissed.
It seems to me that your point about rhetorical context is that no one would ever make those kinds of claims (true claims that only appear rediculous because we don't know enough about the world). So we don't have to worry about dismissing them.

Note: in the other thread you brought up string theory. I'm certainly not talking about that. I mean a leap ahead that would completely change some aspect of science, the same way, for instance, the germ theory of disease changed medicine.
In a time before micro-organisms were known to exist, before microscopes were invented, the claim that they did exist would have seemed un-disprovable.

So, to repeat myself, I'm just looking for a clarification. Do you think that no more such advances in science will occur, or is your position that no one would ever make those claims*, because they would not have access to that knowledge, and that's why we can say that the claims they do make (that fit the other criteria of dismissal) can be said to be certainly false?

*or if they did, there would also be evidence that they came by that knowledge through a process of discovery - probably published in a peer reviewed journal, and so their claim would not be dismissed by an orange skeptic.

[JamesDillon]

sorry to interrupt, I just want to paste here this words again, Im considering to use them as a signature. (note; Im also posting this because I dont want to lose the thread)

"Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so."

I'm not crazy about that as a signature quote, because it assumes that no non-falsifiable claims are intellectually interesting, a proposition that I personally reject. Whether the universe came about through random chance or through an act of creation by a Deistic god makes a difference to me, even if the universe looks exactly the same either way. The same goes for whether my sensory impressions reflect external reality in a relatively accurate manner, or I'm just a brain in a vat somewhere with electrodes causing me to experience sensations of what I take to be the real world. There's no experimental observation I could make to determine which hypothesis is true, but it's still something I'd like to know. Likewise for the immaterial dragon that may or may not be living in my apartment (since I don't have a garage).

[Piggy]

Why is it a bad thing to remain open to new evidence?
It's not a matter of good or bad -- most of the time.

It's just that one can't have it both ways. One can't say, on the one hand, that a claim is false, and on the other hand say that there's a chance that new evidence may emerge which shows that it's not.

If there's a chance that new evidence might be produced, we cannot say that a claim has been falsified.

If a claim has been falsified, it follows from there that there's no chance that new evidence will ever be produced.

If I say, "George Washington was a Lyberian lesbian who divorced Hitler's widow", the claim is false and it would be idiotic to suggest that new evidence might someday emerge demonstrating that he was.

Btw, here's where the bad part can come in -- take the example of Holocaust deniers or creationists. Throwing them the lagnappe of agreeing that evidence proving them right might one day be produced is not only contrary to fact, but also dangerous.

[Piggy]

The green position is too weak because it admits doubt where there ought not be any. Orange skepticism claims that rational means exist to close the gap left by the purely logical/scientific investigation of a claim, which in some cases can erase the margin of doubt and allow positive falsification of the claim.

The truth is, in cases like the ones given, absolute certainty in real-world terms is possible. To put any actual credence in the green margin of doubt in these cases -- to actually be open to the possibility that evidence showing that UDIGs, leprechauns, or Roy's black dog were real -- is to have at least a toe in the castle in the sky.

Remember that it is only your assertion that there ought to be no doubt.

Balderdash! By using the language "only my assertion", you imply that I've plucked an opinion out the air and have offered no justification for it, and this is not the case.

If you do not accept the validity of my methods, then you will disagree that these claims have been fully falsified -- I understand that. But that does not make my assertion arbitrary or unfounded, as you are implying. It is reasoned and rational.

If you want to draw a hard line at the borders of logical and scientific methodology, so be it. To my way of thinking, that approach is unreasonably limited and unrealistic.

[Piggy]

You have pointed out doubt as a flaw in green skepticism
This statement is misleading. Doubt is also present in orange skepticism. Most of the time, both methods will arrive at the same conclusion.

Doubt in itself is not a flaw.

Unreasonable doubt, however, is. Interpreting residual doubt, which arises from the limitations of the modeling process, as actual doubt which should have any force in the real world -- that is an error.

So the natural question is, "How will we know when we've made this error?"

Sometimes we won't. That's the human dilemma. And both shades of skeptical inquiry must allow that when we can't make a determination, we have to leave doubt on the table. We are not justified in moving to absolute "No."

But orange methodology offers further tools by which we can, in some cases, reasonably and rationally conclude that the doubt arising from the logical/scientific model is merely an artifact of the model, and not in any way part of the world we live in.

[Piggy]

On the other hand indoctrination is a flaw in orange skepticism. Orange skepticism is not skeptical of itself. And there is also at least one informal logical fallacy in the orange toolkit.

So why do you consider orange as a better method than green?
You're going to have to explain the bit about "indoctrination". I don't understand what you're referring to.

Rejection of all ad hominem arguments out of hand is, in my opinion, mere dogmatism. I believe the Down East Ernie example covers my position on that.

As I've stated before, from a rhetorical point of view, it's perfectly legitimate to ask questions such as: Who is making this claim? To whom are they making it? Are they trustworthy? Are they sane? What's their record? What other sorts of claims have they made? What might their motives be? What have they said at other places, at other times, to other people?

You may dismiss rhetorical analysis if you choose. I find it valuable.

I consider the orange method superior to the green method simply because it is more robust, and in some cases can compensate for the blind spot in green methodology.

[Piggy]

But is there any practical difference between these viewpoints? Or is this mearly a philosophical difference of opinion about the nature of certainty?

The only practical difference that I can see would happen if new evidence in support of the initial claim did appear. Until then, the two are practically indistinguishable.
To my mind, there is a clear practical difference between claiming "It's so extremely unlikely that there are leprechauns and dragons, that it's safe to behave as if there aren't... but evidence of leprechauns and dragons might one day appear" on the one hand, and claiming "Dragons and leprechauns are bunk" on the other.

One has to have a significantly different perception of some fundamental truths of reality to admit the possibility of these things, in any real sense at all, versus denying even the remotest possibility that they may be real.

To make this point more clear, let's again look at positions which (I hope) both oranges and greens can agree are conclusively disproven. Do you see a practical difference between these statements:

It so extremely unlikely that "the Holocaust was just a hoax by the Jewish conspiracy", that it's safe to behave as if it wasn't -- but it's remotely possible that new evidence may be produced which would prove that it was.

versus

It is not true that "the Holocaust was a hoax by the Jewish conspiracy".

I see a hugely important difference.

Of course, in this thread, we're talking about dragons and leprechauns, so it may seem as if this is all academic. But there may be cases where the difference isn't so trivial.

[Piggy]

Just in case anybody missed it, I am NOT implying in the above post that the green position in any way denies the Holocaust or supports Holocaust denial.

[Piggy]

If a believer tells me that I concede the possibility of the existence of a superior being I have to point out that this being we are talking about hasn't any influence in the real world and then it might as well not be there. I don't know which of the two get out better from this situation...
Hi, Gaga.

I've asked that this particular point be tabled, but there's one thing I will point out.

Take note of this bit from Sagan's example (emphasis mine):

Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they're never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon's fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such "evidence" -- no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it -- is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data....

The green position, at least as expressed by Sagan, holds that "the only sensible approach" (any other approach is not sensible!) is to "be open to future... data", even if the claim is of an undetectable dragon that does in fact interact with the world.

I say that's a load of h*rses**t.

[Piggy]

Again, saying that you don't know something with absolute certainty, and saying that you can't make any conclusions based on the evidence presented are two wildly different statements.
I don't see the difference. "I can't be certain" and "I can't tell from the evidence" seem like the same thing to me.

But I may be misunderstanding you here.

[Piggy]

by the way piggy, I just want to say that while I still don't agree with your arguements, it's very cool how much thought you're putting into this thread. There are a lot of posters that you're having to respond to all at once, so good job there.
When I had a house out in the country in another county, there was a large field owned by the county government over the hedge next to my house.

Sometimes cops would stop there on their breaks with their K-9 units and exercise them.

After a time, the county set up a training course there. Sometimes, during my morning coffee and paper, I was treated to the spectacle of a guy in a padded outfit being set upon... once, twice, over and over again... by an eager rotation of dogs who never tired of the game.

Now I think I know what his job was like. ;)

[Piggy]

I certainly believe that stopping short of asserting falsity does lend credence to the claim. How could it not?
Because simply being possible doesn't mean it is true and not being able to prove it impossible doesn't make it more likely to be true.
It's true that being possible doesn't make it true.

But it's not true that not being able to prove it impossible doesn't make it more likely to be true, for the simple reason that things proven impossible are inherently less likely to be true than things not proven impossible.

Stopping short of falsity lends credence to the claim when compared to not stopping short of falsity. That's all I'm saying. I don't see how anyone can deny that.

In fact, I don't think you are denying it. I think I probably just didn't make my point clear. Sorry about that.

[Piggy]

Let me rephrase it as an unwillingness to concede what really isn't a concession to begin with.
I don't catch your meaning. Can you clarify?

[Piggy]

If you admit, as Sagan does in the thought experiment, that we must be open to the possibility of further evidence, then I don't understand how it's possible to "have zero doubt of the falseness of a claim".
I don't have to be certain a claim can't happen to know that it didn't. A lack of evidence coupled with an extraordinary claim is sufficient to dismiss it.
But that doesn't answer my question. How can you have zero doubt that a claim is false, and at the same time admit that there is any possibility that evidence supporting the claim may appear?

I don't understand the difference between certainty that a claim "isn't true" and certainty that a claim "can't be true" unless the former refers to the claim itself and the latter refers to scientific and logical theories underlying the claim.

From the orange perspective, logical and scientific impossibility are not necessarily asserted by an assertion of the falsity of the claim. So an orange assertion of falsity should not be equated with an argument for logical and scientific impossibility.

Going back to the Leprechaun test, you stated that not only are you certain that leprechauns do not exist, but there can be no evidence, ever, to support their existence. The first says "it isn't true", the second, at least to me, says "it can't be true".
You're going to have to explain this further, because I still don't understand the difference you're drawing between "isn't true" and "can't be true", especially with regards to the relationship between the assertion of the falsity of a claim and the correlary that, therefore, there will never be any evidence showing that the claim is not in fact false.

Since you have not mentioned my suggestion that perhaps you are referring to the distinction between asserting that the claim is false, on the one hand, and asserting that it has been scientifically or logically disproven, on the other, I assume I was wide of the mark there. That was the only way I could make any sense of it, I'm afraid.

Perhaps you are implicitly changing your focus when you move from one statement to the other. Does the phrase "isn't true" pertain to the claim per se, and the phrase "can't be true" pertain to underlying physical laws, perhaps?

[athon]

First of all, I'll echo what others have said on the way you've presented yourself. I'm finding more and more that I disagree, but I'm also respecting the way you've answered questions. It's a rare thing around here, so thanks.

I see your position much more clearly now, however cannot reconcile a difference in evaluative methods. To me, I can't see how two kinds of 'evidence' can be equally valid. It's bordering on the arguments proposed by solipsists such as hammegk, where two versions of reality are equally valid choices.

Maybe.

Let's try this....

The "green" position, as exemplified in Sagan's example in post 2, holds that if a claim -- no matter how absurd -- has not been or cannot be disproven via scientific method, and cannot be dismissed on the basis of pure logic, the only reasonable response is to dismiss it provisionally as unproven, yet be open to the possibility of new evidence.


No problems here, and I agree completely. We have no tools which we can use which can draw the line between 'completely absurd' and 'really, really unlikely', afterall. However I suspect that's what the 'orange' position is about; stating that we do have the tools to do such a thing.

The "orange" position is that -- in cases such as Sagan's Dragon, leprechauns, or Roy's black dog -- no unreasonable or irrational leap is required to close the gap of doubt left by purely logical/scientific inquiry; that it is possible to falsify the claim in the absence of scientific/logical disproof by examining, for example, the ramifications of the claim, and the context in which the claim is made.

How does this make any difference, though? How is it possible to tell the difference between Roy who insane and claims to see a black dog which never was, and Roy who is insane but saw a black dog placed there as a practical joke by the neighbour?

Orange asks for 'context', and draws objective conclusions from it. However the problem is that context itself can never be assumed to be completely known, either, and relies on subjective interpretation.

Maybe it's me, but I'm wondering if orange is a subjective softening of green.

What this comes down to is a difference of opinion regarding what methods are considered valid for skeptical inquiry. Greens and oranges agree on the validity of science and logic, but greens do not agree with oranges on the validity of other methods.

Ok, cool. Thank you for explaining it a little differently; I suspected all this, but feel it got lost in the rhetoric and debate earlier, and I needed a short, simple summary of it. Few people would do that, so cheers.

Therefore, when a debate comes down to only a matter of what sort of evidence is acceptable, agreement will not be acheived by continuing to trade evidence. At that point, we must agree to disagree.

True. I agree.

From the green point of view it is irrational to affirm without any reservation whatsoever that leprechauns, UDIGs, and Roy's black dog do not exist.

From the orange point of view, it is irrational and unreasonable to insist that we must be open to the possibility of new evidence for leprechauns, UDIGs, and Roy's black dog.

Cool. Any chance you could explain how these other methods are valid in their presentation of evidence? It feels far to vague, like 'oh, he's mad, which in context means what he's saying is nonsense'.

Athon

[Piggy]

I suspect we will never agree on this, but let me make a few points anyway.
That's fine. In fact, one of my assumptions is that oranges, greens, and purples will likely never agree on certain points. And oddly enough, that's what makes this entire exercise useful -- and is what sparked it to begin with.

I feel (still a hunch) that if we can recognize when disagreements among skeptics come down to a matter of what type of evidence is considered valid, rather than the evidence itself, we can save ourselves a lot of bickering by knowing when to shake hands and agree to disagree.

But on with the show....

Where I said "unlikely" you say "contradicts established scientific findings". I doubt you apply your criterion strictly: for example, I very much doubt that scientific findings specifically deny the existence of leprechauns ... particularly when the precise definition of 'leprechaun' is unclear (when another poster mentioned the lack of precision, you dismissed his point without adequate argument, IMO).
Well, I'm no saint, so it's entirely possible that I was too quick to dismiss a poster's point.

I agree that "scientific findings [do not] specifically deny the existence of leprechauns". If they did, greens could disprove them, and they would not be a good example here.

But the existence of magical beings, in my view, indeed "contradicts established scientific findings". Ditto for invisible dogs and undetectable dragons.

[athon]

Some have dismissed the notion of being closed to the possibility of new evidence. But let's look at some examples that I hope oranges and greens both agree are disproven.

I don't think that's possible. Green will always insist that the remote possibility exists that things are not as they seem, for whatever unknown reason. Oranges use some other means (which hopefully you'll be so gracious as to explain in more detail) to nullify these 'homeopathic' doubts.

It is not rational or reasonable to insist that a person should accept that there may one day be evidence showing that the Nazi Holocaust was actually a hoax perpetrated by "the Jews", or that the moon landings have been faked, or that miners in Siberia recorded the voices of people in Hell.

You've chosen three issues that would be emotionally sensitive to a skeptic, hence seem to be appealing to our subjective sides.

Is there the possibility that the Nazi Holocaust was a hoax? The details and lengths that a body of people would have to go to in order to perpetuate this, I would say it is so close to impossible that I accept it as 'impossible'. I also accept the remote but equally plausible possibility that I am misinformed, that there is information I don't have and that I am opting to believe in people who are lying. I don't think so... but the possibility is still there, if not tiny.

Same with the moon landing, or even the existence of Hell.

Therefore, green and orange will never agree.

That's what it means to get to absolute "No".

The green position maintains that there are 2 tools that can be used to get all the way to "No": Logic (including math) and scientific investigation.

The orange position maintains that other tools can be employed in certain cases if these don't get you there, especially if it's simply a matter of verbal trickery built into the claim.

I keep disagreeing with your implications of 'verbal trickery', but will ignore it for now.

It's these alternative tools I'm currently interested in.

Athon

[Piggy]

Maybe it's me, but I'm wondering if orange is a subjective softening of green.
Hi, Athon. I don't have time to respond to your post in full, but it caught my eye and I wanted to just chime in on this bit b/c I think it goes to a lot of what has been said in this thread.

I would not object to that characterization.

In one sense, orange skepticism is more bare-knuckled, more street-smart, less academic. But in another sense, it is indeed a softening, a relaxing of the borders of what may be considered valid methodology. There is no denying that rhetorical analysis is softer than pure logic, math, and scientific methodology.

[hammegk]

It's bordering on the arguments proposed by solipsists such as hammegk, where two versions of reality are equally valid choices.
Phooey. I suggest no such thing. Materialism is more flawed than my objective idealism.


I do continue to deny I am The Solipsist. Are you?

[Piggy]

Ok, one more indulgence b/c this is really getting to the heart of it:

Is there the possibility that the Nazi Holocaust was a hoax? The details and lengths that a body of people would have to go to in order to perpetuate this, I would say it is so close to impossible that I accept it as 'impossible'. I also accept the remote but equally plausible possibility that I am misinformed, that there is information I don't have and that I am opting to believe in people who are lying. I don't think so... but the possibility is still there, if not tiny.

Same with the moon landing, or even the existence of Hell.

Therefore, green and orange will never agree.
If that's your stance, then no, we will never agree. And that's ok. My entire intent is to show where our disagreements may be due to differences in what we accept as valid proof, and what we reject as invalid, rather than due to a difference in our opinions of the content of the evidentiary record.

I cannot accept as plausible the possibility that the Holocaust or the moon landings could be a hoax, or that the recordings of Hell could be genuine. I do not grant plausibility to those claims -- period.

I do not agree with you, or with anyone else who does grant any degree of plausibility here.

I do believe that my means of ascertaining truth are valid, and that yours are unnecessarily limited. And I am willing to explain myself, and defend my position.

And most significantly for this thread, I categorically reject any claim that my methods are based on any leap of faith. They are rational and reasonable -- not arbitrary.

But I hope I have the sense to understand that if, in the end, you reject them, that's your choice, and we can get along better if we understand our differences on these points.

Please post if you can formulate more specific questions about orange methodology. I'd be happy to answer them.

[Piggy]

Where I said "unpopular" it seems to me to reasonably accurately describe part of your evaluation of rhetorical context.
I need more here, to be able to respond. Til then, I stick with my initial response.

[athon]

Only for you to explain why you believe orange methodology provides evidence that is equally valid to that provided by science.

You've denied that it's a leap of faith, and yet concede that it's 'softer' than logic. So, it's somewhere between the two. You also state that it is 'bare-knuckled, more street-smart, less academic'... which seems to be an attempt to make it feel stronger and more effective in a real-life situation (I don't know if that was the purpose, but as a writer I'd use such an analogy to those ends).

I ask, therefore, if you can explain how rhetorical analysis (as you've labelled one such method) produces reliable evidence that can dismiss the remaining doubt. Again, how is it possible to tell the difference between Roy who insane and claims to see a black dog which never was, and Roy who is insane but saw a black dog placed there as a practical joke by the neighbour?

Athon

Athon

[Piggy]

Where I said "inconvenient" I was referring to your saying that the truth of the proposition in question would require revising a large body of scientific theory ... inconvenient, but not without precedent and arguably one of the critical and important features of scientific thinking.
Agreed that paradigm shifts are both precedented and necessary to scientific progress.

But please see my post regarding atomic carbon dioxide for an example of how the burden of requiring a paradigm shift can reasonably be considered as evidence against certain claims.

The problem I have with this type of objection is that it conflates specific uses of a demand for paradigm shift in order to confer belief, with other unrelated situations in which argument on the basis of a required paradigm shift would be unreasonable.

In other words, because paradigm shifts are sometimes necessary in science, the green position declares that they can never be an objection to belief, or form part of an overall argument for falsity.

This is akin to saying that, because a person holding a smoking gun in his hand is sometimes not guilty of a murder, therefore a smoking-gun-in-hand should never be admitted in evidence as part of a case to convict a person of murder.

(Apologies for improper commas, but it's difficult sometimes to construct clearly understandable sentences on this thread without them.)

[Beth]

And most significantly for this thread, I categorically reject any claim that my methods are based on any leap of faith. They are rational and reasonable -- not arbitrary.

Why do feel that if your methods are rational and reasonable then they will preclude a leap of faith?

I feel that it's a perfectly rational and reasonable to accept the hypothesis that stars are giant balls of superheated gas far far far away from me. But it is also a leap of faith to do so. I do not understand all of the science involved in figuring that out. I have not made those observations and done the math for myself. I simply believe the people who have done so and reported their conclusions. But it is a leap of faith to believe that - a rational, reasonable leap of faith, no less so that the leap of faith you make to believe that leprechauns don't exist and never have or that rhetorical methods can bridge the gap between actual knowledge and absolute certainty without a bit of faith in there somewhere. If nothing else, you have faith that your methodology is infallible. :)

[Piggy]

Again, how is it possible to tell the difference between Roy who is insane and claims to see a black dog which never was, and Roy who is insane but saw a black dog placed there as a practical joke by the neighbour?

2 sane witnesses, a 7-foot fence, and no proclivity toward practical joking by neighbors who all know about Roy's condition and also know we have 2 cats who we let out into the yard.

[Piggy]

I feel that it's a perfectly rational and reasonable to accept the hypothesis that stars are giant balls of superheated gas far far far away from me. But it is also a leap of faith to do so. I do not understand all of the science involved in figuring that out. I have not made those observations and done the math for myself. I simply believe the people who have done so and reported their conclusions. But it is a leap of faith to believe that - a rational, reasonable leap of faith
"A rational, reasonable leap of faith"? OK, you've stumped me there. To me, that sounds like a naked person wearing a parka.

To my mind, there is absolutely no leap of faith involved in crediting established science of the type you've mentioned.

In this case, I would use the tool of evaluating options. Ask yourself what would have to be true for it to be false "that stars are giant balls of superheated gas far far far away from [us]", versus what would have to be true for that to be accurate.

No contest. False is implausible (ignoring any imprecision in the terminology used in Beth's description).

Compare that to the claim that Kim Jong Il shot 11 holes-in-one the first time he played golf.

[Piggy]

I wish I could reply to the remainder of the posts I haven't yet gotten to -- heck, I'm having to stop mid-post -- but it's getting late and I'm very tired and the other members of my household are feeling unfairly ignored right now. (Which is not to say that they're unfairly feeling ignored.)

I really do want to reply to every point!

Maybe folks could slow down a little? After all, it seems to be me against the world here.

Tomorrow's a very busy day for me, and I'm afraid I might get so far behind that I'll never catch up.

I will say, tho, that this thread has been amazingly civil, insightful, and coherent. I was worried it would end up like some of those philosophy threads.

Thanks to everyone for that, and for having patience with my admittedly unorthodox ideas.

[athon]

2 sane witnesses, a 7-foot fence, and no proclivity toward practical joking by neighbors who all know about Roy's condition and also know we have 2 cats who we let out into the yard.

The problem with hypothetical situations like this is that we are relying on knowing the context to build a sound picture of the situation. As in any situation where we are gathering evidence, the more of the context we know, the smaller the doubt will be.

In this case, you're proposing that neither of his neighbours have a tendency to make practical jokes, and they are sympathetic to fact there are cats in the yard, not to mention Roy's condition. I can still add doubt by proposing that it was a visitor who brought their dog, and as this visitor was a bit of a joker, saw the cats and while the neighbours weren't looking, dropped the dog over for a laugh.

You would then be obliged to again further build the context in order to dismiss the possibility. Each step would require greater context to reduce doubt, something a) could go on for infinity, and more importantly b) is practically impossible to do, as it is striving to reach absolute knowledge of a situation.

Rhetorical context therefore produces weak evidence, as it assumes the context is complete when it never is.

Athon

[Piggy]

The problem with hypothetical situations like this is that we are relying on knowing the context to build a sound picture of the situation. As in any situation where we are gathering evidence, the more of the context we know, the smaller the doubt will be.

In this case, you're proposing that neither of his neighbours have a tendency to make practical jokes, and they are sympathetic to fact there are cats in the yard, not to mention Roy's condition. I can still add doubt by proposing that it was a visitor who brought their dog, and as this visitor was a bit of a joker, saw the cats and while the neighbours weren't looking, dropped the dog over for a laugh.

You would then be obliged to again further build the context in order to dismiss the possibility. Each step would require greater context to reduce doubt, something a) could go on for infinity, and more importantly b) is practically impossible to do, as it is striving to reach absolute knowledge of a situation.

Rhetorical context therefore produces weak evidence, as it assumes the context is complete when it never is.
This is not a hypothetical situation. This really happened.

What you're engaging in is the toddler defense. It holds no water.

You're saying that this completely hypothetical joker visitor managed to drop a dog over a 7 foot fence and that Roy saw it but I and my mother did not? B******t! That adds no doubt at all. It's just factum ex anus from someone who wasn't there. It deserves no granting of plausibility whatsoever. I don't have to go to infinity or anywhere else.

Bottom line, Athon, if you say with a straight face, when a man with a brain tumor and a history of hallucination sees a dog no one else sees in a small fenced yard in broad daylight, that there's any chance in the real world that this dog was real, then you're either fooling yourself, trying to fool someone else, or you don't know s**t from Shinola.

And if this is your defense of your position, then you're arguing my position.

[tsg]

It's true that being possible doesn't make it true.

But it's not true that not being able to prove it impossible doesn't make it more likely to be true, for the simple reason that things proven impossible are inherently less likely to be true than things not proven impossible.

Not being able to prove it impossible doesn't make it not impossible. And being possible doesn't support the claim one bit. That's the fallacy.

"It happened."
"There's no evidence that it did."
"It could have."
"That isn't evidence that it did."

Stopping short of falsity lends credence to the claim when compared to not stopping short of falsity. That's all I'm saying. I don't see how anyone can deny that.

I don't believe it does. It's not up to me to prove it false, it's up to them to prove it true. If they can't do that, there is no reason to believe the claim. End of story. There's no reason to go that extra step and saying the inability to falsify the claim gives it credence is playing into the fallacy.

Let me rephrase it as an unwillingness to concede what really isn't a concession to being with.
I don't catch your meaning. Can you clarify?

You seem hell bent on removing any and all doubt from some claims because you believe any possibility gives the claim credence. It just isn't so. The miniscule amounts of doubt we are talking about are so small as to be virtually zero, yet you are uncomfortable with even that tiny amount that, for all practical purposes, is no different from zero. The miniscule doubt you are unwilling to concede really isn't much of a concession. That it can't be proved false does not support the argument "it's true" at all.

How can you have zero doubt that a claim is false, and at the same time admit that there is any possibility that evidence supporting the claim may appear?

That's not what I'm saying. I don't have to prove leprechauns can't exist to believe that they don't. It's not up to me to prove they can't. It's up to the people claiming they do to prove they do. Until then, I dismiss the claim. I am as certain as I can possbily be that they don't exist, regardless that I can't prove they can't.

Perhaps you are implicitly changing your focus when you move from one statement to the other. Does the phrase "isn't true" pertain to the claim per se, and the phrase "can't be true" pertain to underlying physical laws, perhaps?

Hopefully I've made that clearer, but just in case... "Can't be true" pertains to the possibility of a particular claim being true and "isn't true" pertains to the claim itself. In the case of UDIGs, it need not be impossible ("can't be true") for me to dismiss the claim that there is one in my garage ("isn't true"). Up until this particular person mentioned UDIGs, I had never heard of them so, of course, I did not believe in them. He has presented no evidence besides his say-so, so my position hasn't changed. It's as if he didn't make the claim at all. Whether or not they can exist isn't at all pertinent, especially since it can't be proven that they can't exist.

[Piggy]

The miniscule doubt you are unwilling to concede really isn't much of a concession. That it can't be proved false does not support the argument "it's true" at all.
Doesn't support it at all? Not even a little bit? Not even a teensy tinesy bit? Doesn't support it to any degree greater than, say, proof that it's false?

If that's the case, then how on God's green earth can you stop short of affirming falsity?

You seem to be engaging in the same conflation that equates "evidence" with "sufficient evidence".

It is logically impossible that the statement regarding Claim A "It might be true" does not lend greater credence to Claim A than the statement regarding Claim A "It is false".

If we are indeed talking about levels of doubt so small that they are indistinguishable in the real world from no doubt at all, then my question to you is "Why in the world are you unable to get to absolute 'No'?"

[Piggy]

I don't have to prove leprechauns can't exist to believe that they don't. It's not up to me to prove they can't. It's up to the people claiming they do to prove they do. Until then, I dismiss the claim. I am as certain as I can possbily be that they don't exist, regardless that I can't prove they can't.
Well, here's how certain I am....

They don't freaking exist!

If you're not that certain, then you're not, in fact, as certain as you could possibly be.

Dismissing the claim until it is proven is not the same thing as falsifying it.

We're not talking about who it's up to. We're talking about what constitutes valid methodology to determine absolute falsity.

What you're describing is qualitatively and quantitatively different from what I'm describing.

If you stop short of "There ain't no leprechauns -- period"... if you claim that there might be some evidence of leprechauns one day... then you and I are not describing the same assertions.

[Piggy]

Just in case there's any doubt where I'm coming from, let me be very clear.

Everyone has to have their axioms. No system of thought can exist without them.

I accept it as axiomatic that leprechauns and dragons are not real.

Period.

No qualifications, no hedges.

We know enough about the world in the year 2006 that this can be asserted positively.

Understanding that leprechauns and dragons aren't real simply comes with the territory of being a sane, educated grown-up in the 21st century West.

That is why I assert that any methodology which insists on any level of real-world doubt about the existence of dragons and leprechauns is, therefore, flawed.

But all methods are flawed. What's important is that we recognize where those limitations are in each method. And when possible, it's a good idea to seek out other tools that can help us compensate for those limits.

If you're able to admit, with a straight face, any degree of real-world doubt about the existence of dragons and leprechauns, then you and I will NEVER agree on what constitutes valid and sufficient skeptical methodology.

And that is an important element of this thread.

If you're a strong green, so be it. I'm never going to convince you that anything other than pure logic, math, and scientific method are valid. And you're never going to convince me that anything and everything beyond those methods is inherently invalid just because it's beyond those methods.

But when you look at the contortions and absurdities that greens have gone to on this thread in defense of the indefensible... heck, y'all are my best advocates.

[tsg]

Doesn't support it at all? Not even a little bit? Not even a teensy tinesy bit? Doesn't support it to any degree greater than, say, proof that it's false?

When the claim can't be falsified, no, not even a little bit.

If that's the case, then how on God's green earth can you stop short of affirming falsity?

Because some things can't be falsified. That's the way the world-as-is, is. Pretending that everything can be falsified is just, well, delusional.

You seem to be engaging in the same conflation that equates "evidence" with "sufficient evidence".

It is logically impossible that the statement regarding Claim A "It might be true" does not lend greater credence to Claim A than the statement regarding Claim A "It is false".

If claim A cannot be proven false by it's very nature, then no, it gives no greater credence. Without evidence, a claim that cannot be falsified already has as little credence as it can possibly get.

If we are indeed talking about levels of doubt so small that they are indistinguishable in the real world from no doubt at all, then my question to you is "Why in the world are you unable to get to absolute 'No'?"

Because as I am against others making claims for which they have no evidence, I must hold myself to the same standards. I cannot claim something is absolutely false unless I can provide the evidence supporting that claim. Otherwise I'm just being a hypocrite insisting others support their claims but not having to do the same myself. It is enough for me to say the probability of a particular claim is so ridiculously low that it is safe to ignore it. I need not go any further and declare it impossible because then the burden is on me to show it is. And frankly, I have enough to do in my day without having to disprove every ridiculous claim that crosses my door. The burden is on them to support it. If they can't, I ignore it.

[tsg]

Well, here's how certain I am....

They don't freaking exist!

If you're not that certain, then you're not, in fact, as certain as you could possibly be.

Dismissing the claim until it is proven is not the same thing as falsifying it.

We're not talking about who it's up to. We're talking about what constitutes valid methodology to determine absolute falsity.

What you're describing is qualitatively and quantitatively different from what I'm describing.

If you stop short of "There ain't no leprechauns -- period"... if you claim that there might be some evidence of leprechauns one day... then you and I are not describing the same assertions.

I don't believe in leprechauns. What more can I tell you?

[Roboramma]

Piggy,

You seem to be using emotional logic. "Clearly leprechauns don't exist!" Of course that's clear and everyone here knows it.
"That scenario you offer that allows them to exist is so implausible it's stupid!"
Of course it is. That's the whole point, the claim is so unlikely that any scenario in which it is true would have to appear stupid.

Let me ask you this. If there were some horribly implausible claim from our perspective, that was also true, how would it be possible that the explanation for how it is true was not apparently stupid?

I will go back to the existence of micro-organisms. Say we're talking 800 years ago, and by chance I suggest that tiny living things are crawling over your body. What do you say? "That's ridiculous!" "That's patently false!"
Of course I have no reason, and neither do you, to believe it's true.
"I can't see them" you say,
"they're so tiny they're invisible."
"I can't feel them."
"They're too small to feel."
"I just took a bath, how did they not get washed off?"
"They're so small, lots of them stay bound to your body because the world works differently on a small scale."
etc.

Of course, I wouldn't know any of these explanations. But they would all be true, yet if those people had applied your methodology they would be able to conclude that they were certainly false.
If your methodology can conclude that something that is true is certainly false, then the methodology is flawed.

Your point about rhetorical context seems to be a way out of this. If you are saying, "Sure, but no one would have made that claim at that time, because no one knew about micro organisms. So my methodology would never have been applied."
I can grant that as a way of weakening my point. Is that what you're saying? If not, how do you address this? (I'm really curious, because I can't see it.)

The reason I make the point this way is that all ridiculous explanations (which necessarily required to support ridiculous claims), will appear ridiculous. But its possible for something to seem stupid and ridiculous and still be true.

(I meant not to respond until you'd had a chance to catch up, it's just that your last post got me excited. Sorry :P)

[Roboramma]

I don't see the difference. "I can't be certain" and "I can't tell from the evidence" seem like the same thing to me.

But I may be misunderstanding you here.

Yeah, I think you misunderstood. I said there's a big difference between "I can't be certain" and "I can't make any conclusions."

I conclude that it's very likely that when I press "Post Response" this message will be posted, but sometimes there are errors with the forum, and it doesn't work. I can still conclude that it's very likely.

Similarly, I can make a much stronger case that my brother is still alive. I talked to him yesterday. He's in good health, and doesn't take extraordinary risks. No family has contacted me about anything bad happening to him, and it would be easy for them to do so. So I conclude that he's still alive. I also admit that this conclusion could be wrong - there are some ways in which he could be dead and the evidence that i have available would not be affected.

I can make an incredibly strong case that leprechauns don't exist. For one thing, there are infinite number of similar unfalsifiable propositions. Accepting one without any evidence would require me to accept them all, and I have absolutely no reason to do so. Everything I know about the world suggests that they do not exist. So with a very very high level of confidence I conclude that they don't exist. But I don't pretend to absolute certainty.

Nor, as tsg points out, is there any reason to do so. Until someone gives me any reason to believe one of those infinite unfalsifiable claims, I simply won't bother with them.
If anyone claims that it's hypocritical for me to say, "Leprechauns don't exist" while admitting that it's possible that they do, I would say it's equally hypocritical (of the leprechaun believer) to believe in leprechauns without believing in every other unfalsifiable claim. And no one believes in all of them.

[Melendwyr]

Science is just systematic honesty. The exact details of the system are negotiable -- the honesty is not.

That which cannot be falisified by science cannot be falsified at all.

[athon]

This is not a hypothetical situation. This really happened.

My apologies for the confusion.

What you're engaging in is the toddler defense. It holds no water.

Labelling it infantile and then just claiming it does not is a non-argument.

You're saying that this completely hypothetical joker visitor managed to drop a dog over a 7 foot fence and that Roy saw it but I and my mother did not?

Is it outside of the realms of physical possibility? For a number of reasons, it might be extremely unlikely. And there is the more likely possibility that Roy experienced some form of hallucination, given the context and the circumstances. However you are still yet to explain why it is completely outside of the realms of possibility.

B******t! That adds no doubt at all. It's just factum ex anus from someone who wasn't there.

I'm sensing a lot of emotional reasoning, but again, no reason why it is impossible. This form of reasoning is no different to somebody who swears a loved one would never lie. It might be unlikely, but there is no physical law dictating why a person could not fabricate the truth.

It deserves no granting of plausibility whatsoever. I don't have to go to infinity or anywhere else.

Bottom line, Athon, if you say with a straight face, when a man with a brain tumor and a history of hallucination sees a dog no one else sees in a small fenced yard in broad daylight, that there's any chance in the real world that this dog was real, then you're either fooling yourself, trying to fool someone else, or you don't know s**t from Shinola.

And if this is your defense of your position, then you're arguing my position.

Piggy, I've asked a number of times for you to explain how such a tool provides evidence that is on par with scientifically produced evidence. So far all you've given emotional and subjective arguments. People often use this same reasoning to explain why ghosts, UFO's and bigfoot are real, and also cannot understand it when 'hard' evidence is required.

I'm not disputing the likelihood that Roy was hallucinating. If I could bet a million dollars on it, I would, and be confident of winning it back. However you have presented no reason (other than emotional pleading) as to why another possibility could not exist.

Athon

[athon]

Everyone has to have their axioms. No system of thought can exist without them.

I accept it as axiomatic that leprechauns and dragons are not real.

Period.

No qualifications, no hedges.

We know enough about the world in the year 2006 that this can be asserted positively.

Understanding that leprechauns and dragons aren't real simply comes with the territory of being a sane, educated grown-up in the 21st century West.

That is why I assert that any methodology which insists on any level of real-world doubt about the existence of dragons and leprechauns is, therefore, flawed.

But all methods are flawed. What's important is that we recognize where those limitations are in each method. And when possible, it's a good idea to seek out other tools that can help us compensate for those limits.

If you're able to admit, with a straight face, any degree of real-world doubt about the existence of dragons and leprechauns, then you and I will NEVER agree on what constitutes valid and sufficient skeptical methodology.

And that is an important element of this thread.

I'm wondering if you really understand what an axiom is, then.

An axiom is not a truth you establish in order to found further arguments. An axiom is a self-evident truth. In other words, a truth that requires no evidence by its very nature.

'Things fall down' is an axiom, as 'down' is described as being the direction something falls. It requires no proof on account of its own truth. You could argue and say they fall up, however you would then be simply redefining the axiom, not disproving it. As such, it is close to being a logical tautology (ooh, don't get me started on one of those logical arguments...).

My days of science philosophy and logic were a while ago, so I'd be happy to be corrected. However I do know you cannot simply say 'I have an axiom that bears are not real animals'. It doesn't work that way.

But when you look at the contortions and absurdities that greens have gone to on this thread in defense of the indefensible... heck, y'all are my best advocates.

Please point out where that has happened. So far you've neglected to explain why rhetorical analysis and emotional contexting are equal in science and logic in terms of the validity of the evidence they provide.

Sticking your fingers in your ears and repeating 'I can pick my own truths, you can pick yours, so let's agree to disagree' lends no weight to your argument.

Athon

[athon]

Let me ask you this. If there were some horribly implausible claim from our perspective, that was also true, how would it be possible that the explanation for how it is true was not apparently stupid?

*snip*

Nice post, Roboramma. We don't need to go back 800 years; early microbiologists had discussions much like this. Hell, without even knowing about microbes, look at the hassles Semmelweiss had with convincing other doctors to simply wash their hands, in spite of the evidence.

On occasion, absurd things have been demonstrated to be factual. It's rare, but that's the whole point. Small room for doubt, because of a small occurance of doubtful things.

Athon

[Piggy]

I accept it as axiomatic that leprechauns and dragons are not real.
I haven't read any of the new stuff, but I know I'm going to get spanked for this one, so let me just say....

I don't actually believe that non-existence of dragons and leprechauns is technically axiomatic.

I accept that leprechauns and dragons are so thoroughly falsified that their non-existence might as well be axiomatic.

Sorry about that.

The thing is, sometimes it's just hard to believe that folks are actually arguing that it is reasonable to ask anyone to be open to the possibility of new evidence that these things might be real.

Or, if folks are arguing that this openness to new evidence does not have any real-world force, then it's hard to see why they are unwilling to pony up that leprechauns and dragons have been falsified.

I do get the impression that there's some confusion -- tho I can't see why there should be -- over what I'm talking about when I speak of getting to "No" or absolute falsity.

I am not claiming that leprechauns and dragons can be made to be scientifically disproven. If they could be scientifically disproven, they'd be bad examples. When I say they're falsified, I mean that, when we use all the means at our disposal as rational, skeptical human beings, we're left with no real-world doubt about their non-existence, and no need to remain open to new evidence.

[Piggy]

I don't believe in leprechauns. What more can I tell you?
You can tell me exactly what you mean by that and how it is relevant.

1. If you mean "leprechauns are not real -- period", then please explain how it is rational to argue for being open to the possibility of new evidence. (The point of the conspiracy theory examples above was to demonstrate that the two positions are mutually exclusive.) If you believe that it's possible (at all!) that new evidence may someday be produced, then your disbelief in leprechauns is provisional. When I say "They don't exist", it should be clear by now that I mean the claim that they do is false.

2. If you are not actually open to the possibility of new evidence, then please explain how you can say that the claim "leprechauns exist" isn't false. (I know it's not scientifically disprovable.)

In other words, do you have any real-world doubt, or don't you?

If you don't, then you believe that the claim "leprechauns exist" is false. Not scientifically disproven, not logically impossible, but false.

If you do, then you can't say "leprechauns don't exist -- period" and your statement that you "don't believe in" them is irrelevant.

[Piggy]

You seem to be using emotional logic. "Clearly leprechauns don't exist!" Of course that's clear and everyone here knows it.
Then why, in the name of all that is holy, do people seem to be arguing with a straight face that we must be open to the possibility of new evidence -- an assertion that is incompatible with these beings' non-existence?

I'm not asking anyone to move from "Leprechauns don't exist" to "Leprechauns have been scientifically disproven". I'm asking people to examine the means by which we actually do know that they don't exist -- i.e., we know that the statement "Leprechauns exist" is false (not scientifically disproven, but still false) -- and how these methods, in real life, reasonably and rationally fill the gap of "on paper" doubt between scientific and logical reasoning and what we actually know to be true.

[Piggy]

Labelling it infantile and then just claiming it does not is a non-argument.
Then look back at the earlier posts where I explain what I mean by "the toddler defense". And the truth is, the argument you're making, if you're serious about it, actually is infantile. That's a perfectly accurate word to describe it.

Is it outside of the realms of physical possibility? For a number of reasons, it might be extremely unlikely. And there is the more likely possibility that Roy experienced some form of hallucination, given the context and the circumstances. However you are still yet to explain why it is completely outside of the realms of possibility.
Ok, you're not following my argument, or you have misunderstood it. Go back to McGath's comments I cited in post 3 regarding claims that do and do not deserve a "respectful hearing", and my comments regarding granting plausibility vis. a toddler defense.

You seem to be arguing that mere pysical possibility earns an idea a seat at the table.

I don't buy that.

These alleged counter-arguments of yours were invented out of whole cloth for the purpose of argument alone by someone with no connection to the incident, they posit a hypothetical person doing a nonsensical thing for no apparent reason and being allowed to, and they don't in any way answer the question of why my mother and I saw no dog, a question which is answered plausibly by his tendency to hallucinate.

That is what makes my approach both reasonable and rational.

If you find something unreasonable and irrational about my refusal to take your counter-arguments seriously, then please describe it.

(Sorry I don't have time right now to answer some of your questions about my other methods, but I gotta get to work.)

The fact is, Athon, your counter-argument demonstrates my point that refusing to go beyond pure logical and scientific means when investigating a claim forces folks into considering silly ideas that deserve to be dismissed as patently false on their face.

[athon]

I am not claiming that leprechauns and dragons can be made to be scientifically disproven. If they could be scientifically disproven, they'd be bad examples. When I say they're falsified, I mean that, when we use all the means at our disposal as rational, skeptical human beings, we're left with no real-world doubt about their non-existence, and no need to remain open to new evidence.

Which is where the danger lies. By remaining closed to new evidence, you are excluding any chance of improving a model. If the evidence does not alter the model, it is cast aside and not used.

Evidence should always stand on its own merit; I see no reason to ever close the file on a phenomena simply because somebody feels it is utterly ridiculous. As it has been said, if this occured in the past we would not have germ theory, would still believe that lightning is combustion in the clouds, and not understand that heat is not caused by a particle called 'Caloric'.

'Heat is something that does not exist as a 'thing'? But it flows! Nonsense...'
'Small animals too small to see are making me sick? Nonsense...'
'Lightning is the same thing as the small charge I get when I take off my jumper? Nonsense...'

Some things are utterly ridiculous. But if somebody says otherwise, my first statement is always 'well, prove it'. They are thereby obliged to present the evidence, which I am obliged to consider.

Athon

[Piggy]

I will go back to the existence of micro-organisms. Say we're talking 800 years ago, and by chance I suggest that tiny living things are crawling over your body. What do you say? "That's ridiculous!" "That's patently false!"
Nope. "That's patently false" would be going too far. Orange methodology cannot, for example, say that string theory is false, or brane theory, or the theory that quarks are made up of even smaller subatomic things that operate on a unque physics, or the theory that photons are actually larger than our universe because they are hyperdimensional structures that only intersect our universe at the point where we see them, or that there are an infinite number of parallel universes, or the theory that other coherent worlds exist inside black holes, or that the Big Bang was engendered by the hypercosmic equivalent of a pop bottle being opened, etc etc etc.

Personally, I'm not willing to go 100% that Elvis is dead. I don't know enough about it. I can't say that there is no Yeti. I don't know enough about it.

[Piggy]

Which is where the danger lies. By remaining closed to new evidence, you are excluding any chance of improving a model.
Are you seriously arguing that we must always be open to new evidence for any-and-everything?

I reject that notion outright. Some things are known, you can stick a fork in 'em.

And there is nothing in orange methodology that would have been closed to theories and experiments that led to our understanding of heliocentrism, gravitation, meteors, electricity, microbes, vaccines, relativity, quantum mechanics, or black holes.

Your statement that orange skeptics are willing to reject an idea "simply because somebody feels it is utterly ridiculous" is a gross mischaracterization of what I've been saying, and you know it -- or you should.

Off to work. More this evening.

[athon]

Then look back at the earlier posts where I explain what I mean by "the toddler defense". And the truth is, the argument you're making, if you're serious about it, actually is infantile. That's a perfectly accurate word to describe it.

I understand what you mean by 'toddler defence'.

i.e.

consider the toddler who invents an implausible story in an apparent attempt to avoid punishment. As the faults of the story are revealed, he comes up with even more outlandish excuses, digging himself further into his hole (and increasing his eventual punishment in the process). Considering not just the implausibility of the claims per se, but also their source (rhetorical context), at some point – like when he says the Easter Bunny did it – we are justified in concluding that the chances of his story being true are zero.

The issue lies in the infinitly small mark where you jump from 99.999999999999% certain to 100%. Yes, I can constantly make up possibilities, and until you can demonstrate for any one of those possibilities that it is absolutely not possible for some reason, it remains valid.

This is where Occham's Razor becomes so useful.

Now, other than calling it infantile, and using emotional reasoning, you still have not said why a rational, if unlikely, series of possibilities can equate 'impossible'. That is at the crux of the argument.

Ok, you're not following my argument, or you have misunderstood it. Go back to McGath's comments I cited in post 3 regarding claims that do and do not deserve a "respectful hearing", and my comments regarding granting plausibility vis. a toddler defense.

Piggy, don't make the mistake of thinking that because somebody doesn't agree they don't understand. You're becoming very condescending, which again is weakening any argument you have left. The notion of 'respectful hearing' is a subjective choice, based not on the validity of the evidence but your emotional sentiments on whether evidence should even be looked at or not.

You seem to be arguing that mere pysical possibility earns an idea a seat at the table.

I don't buy that.

Yes, I am. And you are yet to say why not. Emotional reasoning is far too subjective and inconsistent to be effective in evaluating evidence. That has been said several times by several posters.

These alleged counter-arguments of yours were invented out of whole cloth for the purpose of argument alone by someone with no connection to the incident, they posit a hypothetical person doing a nonsensical thing for no apparent reason and being allowed to, and they don't in any way answer the question of why my mother and I saw no dog, a question which is answered plausibly by his tendency to hallucinate.

I agree. In relation to you, I know very little of the context, and have next to no chance of proposing an alternative that is equally plausible to the hallucination theory; my point was not to give a realistic alternative, but to show that plausible alternatives will always exist, even if they are not likely. You've managed to evade the very point of the post, so I will restate it.

Do you know the entire context? Every detail? Do you recall it all accurately? Every detail? If you claim so, I feel you suffer the same delusions as those who claim to recall every detail of a UFO encounter. We cannot know the full and entire context of anything; science is about attempting to define entire contexts, and it always falls short. I don't feel that I need to explain this to you, because you seem to grasp that much.

Please don't get confused with thinking I'm suggesting you don't recall enough to be able to construct a valid theory as to why your uncle saw the dog and you and your mother did not. I'm certain you do, and I'm certain your theory is correct. However, to conclude that certainty is 100% is assuming that you currently possess all of the information with absolute accuracy, which is not true.

That is what makes my approach both reasonable and rational.

Hm, I've reread your statement three times, and still can't see where it becomes reasonable. We could continue to define the exact context of the situation forever, and I could still propose 'toddler' arguments, each less likely than the last, but still possible. I could suggest it was you and your mother who suffered a hallucination, misremembering the whole situation. Ludicrous, of course, but not beyond the parameters of possible.

The point is, there is no tool to decide when something becomes 'too ludicrous to be possible' other than your personal experience, hence it is far too emotion based to be useful.

If you find something unreasonable and irrational about my refusal to take your counter-arguments seriously, then please describe it.

(Sorry I don't have time right now to answer some of your questions about my other methods, but I gotta get to work.)

The fact is, Athon, your counter-argument demonstrates my point that refusing to go beyond pure logical and scientific means when investigating a claim forces folks into considering silly ideas that deserve to be dismissed as patently false on their face.

The bottom line is, 'silly' is subjective. Pure and simple. I might dismiss some claims as silly for practical reasons (limitations of time and money, for example), however to equate them with 'impossible' is to blur what impossible means.

Athon

[Gaga]

Hello Piggy!
Just my 2 cents:
Entertaining for the sake of argument the idea that there's a microscopic possibility that Leprechauns really exist doesn't mean that I act consequently in my everyday life. I think there is a sort of leap of faith here, without it all of us (green or orange) could not go on. It seems to me that you are drawing a line between what you define as a "real world" doubt and a hypothethical doubt e.g. what Athon defines in the dog's story. For me it's just about setting subjectively a degree of probability below which I would not consider a claim worth of spending energies into.
IMO the weakness of the orange pov is that, once stripped of the scientific and logic arguments, the non-scientific and non-logic evidences that you can throw in to disprove a point are subjective. And they can used in favour or against a given argument.

[athon]

Are you seriously arguing that we must always be open to new evidence for any-and-everything?

I reject that notion outright. Some things are known, you can stick a fork in 'em.

What definitions do you apply, then, to discern whether evidence is too foolish or not? So far it's been arbitrary, emotional reasoning.

I'm not suggesting that all claims are equal. But all evidence must be taken on its own merit. The more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the evidence must be. However should such evidence be brought forward, why dismiss it?

Athon

[tsg]

You can tell me exactly what you mean by that and how it is relevant.

1. If you mean "leprechauns are not real -- period", then please explain how it is rational to argue for being open to the possibility of new evidence. (The point of the conspiracy theory examples above was to demonstrate that the two positions are mutually exclusive.) If you believe that it's possible (at all!) that new evidence may someday be produced, then your disbelief in leprechauns is provisional. When I say "They don't exist", it should be clear by now that I mean the claim that they do is false.

2. If you are not actually open to the possibility of new evidence, then please explain how you can say that the claim "leprechauns exist" isn't false. (I know it's not scientifically disprovable.)

In other words, do you have any real-world doubt, or don't you?

Practically? No. Theoretically? Yes, although the evidence required to convince me that leprechauns do exist would have to be extraordinary. But for me to sit here and tell you that there is no possible way, ever, that that evidence will ever be presented would require knowing, literally, everything about, literally, everything. Omniscience. And I'll be the first to admit I know nothing about everything. Theoretical physicists are toying with the idea that there may be 11 dimensions to our universe. I have a hard enough time representing the 3 that I do have experience with two-dimensionally. I can't even begin to imagine what 11 would look like in the four I'm capable of perceiving. And that's something that I'm aware of. Who knows what's out there that we don't know? The only way you can possibly remove all doubt that any evidence for leprechauns will ever exist is to say "we know everything".

If you do, then you can't say "leprechauns don't exist -- period" and your statement that you "don't believe in" them is irrelevant.

What are you asking when you ask me if leprechauns exist? You are asking me if I believe they do. That's all I can speak about with any authority. Otherwise you're asking me to be omniscient and I can't do that.

I don't believe leprechauns exist. The possibility that we will discover evidence that they do exist is infintessimally small, practically nil, but not absolute zero. Interpret that any way you like.

[Beth]

"A rational, reasonable leap of faith"? OK, you've stumped me there. To me, that sounds like a naked person wearing a parka. Hmmm. And yet, even a person wearing a parka is naked underneath. Not a bad analogy. Too me, your attempt to eliminate all possibility of faith is much like putting on more and more clothes and declaring that means you are not naked underneath them.

To my mind, there is absolutely no leap of faith involved in crediting established science of the type you've mentioned. We differ there. To me, there is faith because it is not something I have investigated for myself, I have accepted other peoples reports and theories. That means I have faith in what I have read.

In this case, I would use the tool of evaluating options. Ask yourself what would have to be true for it to be false "that stars are giant balls of superheated gas far far far away from [us]", versus what would have to be true for that to be accurate.

No contest. False is implausible (ignoring any imprecision in the terminology used in Beth's description). I agree. False is implausible. But that doesn't mean that belief in it doesn't have an element of faith. That's my point.

Compare that to the claim that Kim Jong Il shot 11 holes-in-one the first time he played golf.

Well, certainly some statements are more plausible than others. No disagreement there. But that doesn't mean there isn't any faith involved.

BTW, I must echo the sentiments of others here. Your contributions to these threads and the conversation you have sparked is terrific and your responses are amazingly civil to everyone. You are doing a great job!

[Beth]

If we are indeed talking about levels of doubt so small that they are indistinguishable in the real world from no doubt at all, then my question to you is "Why in the world are you unable to get to absolute 'No'?"

I know you said you weren't a math person, but I'm going to try a mathematical argument anyway. Consider the fraction 1/n. As n gets larger and larger, 1/n gets smaller and smaller. By making n large enough, the fraction 1/n can become as close to zero as you wish, but it never actually becomes zero. This is what is meant by asymptotic.

[Stir]

... the cognitive processes by which we perceive reality are complicated beyond belief, and full of surprises. You place a lot of importance on the 'world-as-is' (you describe it as the real world and the only world that matters) ... as though that is a clear cut thing that "exists" independent of the perceiver. Many would doubt the correctness of that point of view.

Piggy, you've obviously raised an important and interesting question, and managed this discussion extremely well.

I made the mistake (in my prior post) of stating my most important point late in the post and too briefly, so I've repeated it above.

After much thought, I believe that our fundamental difference is probably based on differing opinions as to the nature of reality. I think that it is far from certain that 'reality' 'exists' independent of the perceiver. You assume (axiomatically?) that there is a real world, a world-as-is, which is the same for everyone. Perhaps you consider the independent existence of such a real world obvious and beyond serious doubt. I do not.

My uncertainty as to the nature of reality need not (and does not) prevent me from acting as though my personally perceived reality is 'real', or from acting as though we share a common reality. But I am quite certain that our realities do, in fact, differ ... and I don't really know how like or unlike they might be.

Other posters have touched on this issue, but I've not seen your response (possibly I've missed it ... this thread is getting quite long).

I'm looking forward to your thoughts on this.

[Roboramma]

But I am quite certain that our realities do, in fact, differ ... and I don't really know how like or unlike they might be.


This is actually one of those claims that I would put in the "possible but increadibly unlikley to be true" category.
For me it comes down to occam's razor. Every way in which our realities could have differed that I could have discovered turns out not to exist - every test they've been put to show us as having realities that are identical, which seems to suggest that they are the same reality.

So we're left with two hypothesis here:
1. That we do have two distinct realities, they are just the same in every way we can see.
2. There is one real world that we are both observing.

The first falls to Occam's razor. I can't disprove it, but I can show it to be a much weaker hypothesis than the one I have to work with.

And pragmatically, I can also show that the idea that there is a real world that we both inhabit is far more useful than the idea of everyone having a slightly different world. This pragmatic concideration (which I think you realise as well) need not require the previous point about which one is more likely to be true.
That said, let me restate that not only does it make sense to act as though there is a real world, we actually have plenty of reason to beleive that there is one. Because it's the most parsimonious explanation available.

And while niether I, nor anyone else can prove it, we can be pretty sure it's true, and we can also show that the implications of that idea do apply. That is, for example, I should pay my phone bill, because if I don't my phone will be shut off.

[Piggy]

There's a custom where I live to hold church services on Wednesday nights as well as Sunday mornings -- just so folks don't stray too far duing the week.

It's a fine tradition, and can be beneficial to threads as well. So to keep ourselves focused, here's a recap of the central points of the OPs.

(Later tonight I'll get back to fielding issues that aren't covered here -- I stopped in mid-response to a long post last night, I believe JamesDillon raised some interesting points I haven't gotten to, and there are many posts I haven't even read.)

The crux of it comes down to this germ of the green position from Dr. Sagan, regarding claims of undetectable dragons that interact with the physical world:

Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data....

This is where an orange skeptic delivers a hefty reality check to Dr. Sagan's table.

The only sensible approach?

Any other approach is not sensible?

Hmmm....

It seems that Sagan's example doesn't fully conform to any sort of claim we see made in real life, so let's pump it up a bit. Here we introduce UDIGs ("undetectable dragons in garages", to distinguish clearly b/t this example and the more limited scenario of "Sagan's Dragon") -- after doing as Dr. Sagan recommends and investigating "what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion", we find this:


Although there are ancient and widespread traditions of belief in UDIGs – which formerly abided in stables, according to believers -- there seems to be no even minimally coherent theory of a UDIG, no minimal set of properties that adherents can agree on, even if we exclude highly marginal opinions.

There are credible evolutionary and biological explanations for why humans would tend to believe in UDIGs even if UDIGs are not real.

Except for a small number of converts, UDIG claimants were taught literally from the cradle that UDIGs are real, that they are the ultimate source of all morality and goodness and love, that doubting their existence can result in eternal torture, and that people who don't believe in them are under the influence of demons.

What about now? Is mere tentative dismissal of the claim, and admitting the possibility of future evidence, still the only sensible approach?

Is every other approach somehow not sensible, somehow unreasonable or irrational, somehow a leap of faith?

Just so we're not operating on a single example, let's introduce 2 other claims more closely tied to the world we live in than is Sagan's Dragon or UDIGs:

1. Leprechauns. What's the green position on a claim that "Leprechauns exist" (with leprechauns taken to mean actual living magical little people running around in the woods)?

2. Roy's black dog -- a non-hypothetical situation involving a man with a brain tumor, who has begun hallucinating, insisting that there is a black dog clearly visible at a particular spot in a small yard, surrounded by a high fence, in broad daylight, when 2 other people (who do not have brain tumors and have no history of hallucinosis) do not see this dog. What is the green position on whether Roy's claim is false, or whether there is some real-world chance that it's true and we should be open to new evidence?

Is Dr. Sagan's approach still the only sensible one? Are other approaches not sensible?

The orange position says "No". There are sensible, reasonable, rational approaches that can be used here. They are the same ones we use in our courts of law, the same ones we use when deciding whether our small children are telling outrageous fibs, the same ones we use when determining if we're being scammed.

"Aha!" cries the green skeptic. "Courts only establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt!"

"That's true," says the orange skeptic. "But don't get ahead of me here. All that's being said at the moment is that these methods -- such as investigating the context of a claim and the mental state of the claimant, evaluating the full ramifications of a claim, weighing the claim against other theories -- are sensible. They are not unreasonable. They are not irrational. They are not mere 'faith'."

"But they are not scientific," says the green skeptic. "They can't get you to the point of scientific disproof. They don't make the claim mathematically or logically impossible."

"I know," says the (now weary) orange skeptic. "I know, I know, I know.... I'm not saying that these methods can be used as part of scientific, mathematical, or logical proof. What I'm saying is that Dr. Sagan is wrong when he claims that stopping at tentative dismissal and holding out the possibility of eventual confirmatory evidence is the only sensible approach. What I'm saying is that science, math, and pure logic are not the only tools that can be called sensible, not the only tools that can be used to determine falsity."

"But how do you know these tools are valid?" asks the greenie.

"The same way we know science and logic are valid," answers the oranger, "because when properly applied, they work."

"But hold on a minute," says green. "What if you applied that to, say, quantum mechanics? What if you'd applied that kind of thinking instead of scientific thinking to germ theory? We'd never have any scientific progress. They wouldn't 'work' there!"

"You're getting ahead again," reminds orange. "We're only talking about whether it's a 'sensible approach' to determining whether unsupported and outlandish claims like undetectable dragons, magical little men, and invisible dogs deserve the favor of only tentative dismissal and being open to the chance of new evidence rather than being declared false outright."

And that's what it boils down to.

The orange claim is that Sagan is wrong here. And that any vestigal shred of doubt is unsupportable in the real world when light is shone upon the claim's context and ramifications, which makes this talk of being open to new evidence meaningless.

Here's the Come To Jesus....

When faced with a claim such as leprechauns or Roy's black dog, it makes no sense to hold these 3 opinions simultaneously:

1. Leprechauns don't exist.
2. The claim "Leprechauns exist" isn't false.
3. It's possible that evidence for the existence of leprechauns might turn up someday.

Either #1 has to go, or #2 and #3 have to go.

Either you have some (any) actual doubt that leprechauns may in fact be real and we actually should admit some (any) possibility that new evidence could turn up... or you don't have any actual doubt about it, and therefore it makes no sense to say that evidence might turn up, and therefore the claim "Leprechauns exist" is false.

Either/or.

Orange skepticism looks at the whole picture, including who's making the claim and the full ramifications of the claim, and declares with no reservation:

1. Leprechauns don't exist.
2. The claim "Leprechauns exist" is false.
3. Because leprechauns don't exist, and the claim that they do is false, it is nonsensical to expect that any evidence for their existence will ever turn up.

It's that simple, folks.

[Roboramma]

I just saw something in your latest post, piggy, that made me realise we may be misunderstanding each other's position in regards to this post:

Nope. "That's patently false" would be going too far. Orange methodology cannot, for example, say that string theory is false, or brane theory, or the theory that quarks are made up of even smaller subatomic things that operate on a unque physics, or the theory that photons are actually larger than our universe because they are hyperdimensional structures that only intersect our universe at the point where we see them, or that there are an infinite number of parallel universes, or the theory that other coherent worlds exist inside black holes, or that the Big Bang was engendered by the hypercosmic equivalent of a pop bottle being opened, etc etc etc.

I don't think I ever suggested it could. All of those things have evidence of some sort or another in favour of them. At the very least they are consistent with what we know about the world.
But 800 years ago the germ theory of disease would not have been consistent with what was thought to be known of the world. It would have appeared no different than a claim about invisible dragons does today.

I'm not suggesting that an orange would have to throw out current cutting edge theories in physics or biology. Many will turn out to be false, and some might turn out to be true, and your methodology allows you to admit that.
But the theories that 500 years from now might become known. If they were submitted to you now, you might be forced to throw some out. Because we don't have the evidence for them yet.

Just like, before there was any evidence, and while there appeared to be contradictory evidence, you would have had to throw out the germ theory of disease, (or QM too, for that matter, but only when we're talking about before the evidence existed).

[tsg]

When faced with a claim such as leprechauns or Roy's black dog, it makes no sense to hold these 3 opinions simultaneously:

1. Leprechauns don't exist.
2. The claim "Leprechauns exist" isn't false.
3. It's possible that evidence for the existence of leprechauns might turn up someday.

Either #1 has to go, or #2 and #3 have to go.


1. Based on what we know, leprechauns don't exist.
2. The claim "leprechauns exist" isn't falsifiable without knowing everything.
3. Because we don't know everything, there exists a small possibility of finding evidence for the existence of leprechauns.

[Jimbo07]

Hmm... after 3 threads on this, I thought there was nothing left for me to say! In fact, in certain directions there isn't, so I'm going to start a bit of a different path... I'll call it:

Piggy's "Argument from Real-Worldidness."

I'll suggest that this argument, used in favour of a strong orange position (and perhaps green too), is probably a fallacy. To pick a quote from Piggy,


Understanding that leprechauns and dragons aren't real simply comes with the territory of being a sane, educated grown-up in the 21st century West.

That is why I assert that any methodology which insists on any level of real-world doubt about the existence of dragons and leprechauns is, therefore, flawed.

...

If you're able to admit, with a straight face, any degree of real-world doubt about the existence of dragons and leprechauns, then you and I will NEVER agree on what constitutes valid and sufficient skeptical methodology.


or


Some things are known, you can stick a fork in 'em.


So let's see if I can define an "argument from real-worldidness", or at least as it's being applied:

It's a cold-hard world and things can be taken as certain, due to the nature of interacting in that world. This objective world should suggest that for things for which there is no good evidence, and perhaps a mountain of poor, or contradictory evidence, we can conclude that they are false. The objectiveness of events not under our control suggest that not only can we conclude that they are false, but we can then be certain that they are false.

Bluntly - religion provides certainty.

I now use real-worldidness to reiterate my claim that absolutely certain acceptance of a negative is, in fact, a belief. I would think that sane, educated grown-ups anytime, anywhere might recognize the inherent uncertainty of real-life. Religion closes the door to uncertainty. I challenge people to state that they have never had to make a decision based on incomplete information. I suspect we're all challenged to make statements of certainty when we're otherwise uncertain.

I'd suggest that the real-world, in fact, has more uncertainty than even some greens (myself included) would like.

It might be appropriate for both greens and oranges, then, to drop any mention of a so-called real-world.

The only certainty about the world is that everything is uncertain... but I'm not certain about that ;)

[Piggy]

1. Based on what we know, leprechauns don't exist.
2. The claim "leprechauns exist" isn't falsifiable without knowing everything.
3. Because we don't know everything, there exists a small possibility of finding evidence for the existence of leprechauns.
This is logically absurd. (Unless statement 1 is merely synonymous with statement 3.)

The only way to make it coherent is to change statement 1 to something like "It is highly unlikely that leprechauns exist".

You're trying to have it both ways.

If your position is that we don't know enough to discount the possibility that leprechauns exist, then you cannot claim "leprechauns don't exist", which is fine if that's your position. But what you're doing here is trying to skirt that issue by making it seem as though it's rational to claim some form of "Leprechauns don't exist, but it's possible that it may turn out that they do."

"Based on what we know, leprechauns don't exist" is meaningless in this context because you affirm in statement 3 that "what we know" is insufficient to draw a conclusion regarding the existence of leprechuans.

[Piggy]

But 800 years ago the germ theory of disease would not have been consistent with what was thought to be known of the world. It would have appeared no different than a claim about invisible dragons does today.
What well-established and thoroughly tested scientific laws would have been made nonsensical by the existence of microbes?

[Piggy]

So let's see if I can define an "argument from real-worldidness", or at least as it's being applied:

It's a cold-hard world and things can be taken as certain, due to the nature of interacting in that world. This objective world should suggest that for things for which there is no good evidence, and perhaps a mountain of poor, or contradictory evidence, we can conclude that they are false. The objectiveness of events not under our control suggest that not only can we conclude that they are false, but we can then be certain that they are false.
You've made several errors here.

The claim that I've said "things can be taken as certain" is so overstated as to be grossly misleading. Ditto for "and perhaps a mountain of poor, or contradictory evidence". You are not restricting yourself to the narrowly defined issue at hand, but attempting to apply my argument to any-and-everything.

Let's stick to the topic of discussion. Explain to me why my methods for determining that 'residual doubt in the cases under consideration is not sustainable when we move from "paper" to actuality' are not reasonable and rational, but rather are some sort of faith or religion.

[Piggy]

It might be appropriate for both greens and oranges, then, to drop any mention of a so-called real-world.
The real world is the only one I know. It's where I live. If you're in some other world, then it's likely that nothing I'm talking about has anything to do with you.

[Piggy]

But the theories that 500 years from now might become known. If they were submitted to you now, you might be forced to throw some out. Because we don't have the evidence for them yet.

Just like, before there was any evidence, and while there appeared to be contradictory evidence, you would have had to throw out the germ theory of disease, (or QM too, for that matter, but only when we're talking about before the evidence existed).
Tell me, who was suggesting these theories before any evidence existed, before there was any support?

You see, I have to know this in order to examine the rhetorical context of the claim.

Or are you indulging in a fantasy-like hypothetical that has never happened and we have no reason to believe ever will?

Let's go back to the kid with the bottle.

Suppose I say "Whatcha got there, kid?" and he says "frablons".

"Frablons?" I say. "What're frablons?"

"That's what all subatomic particles are made of," he says. "They're hyperdimensional. And if you split one, it makes a hole in time. Gotta run!" And off he goes.

"Frablons!" my friend chuckles. "You ever heard of that?"

"No," I say, "he's just making it up."

"So it's not true?"

"I dunno" I admit.

"Whaddya mean? That kid just made it up. He was just playing."

"I know," I say. "But that doesn't mean that subatomic particles aren't made up of hyperdimensional objects that make a hole in time if you split them. How can you say?"

So no, the orange position doesn't force a verdict of "False" for every unsupported and bizarre claim.

[JamesDillon]

The real world is the only one I know. It's where I live. If you're in some other world, then it's likely that nothing I'm talking about has anything to do with you.
Piggy,
Following up on my second post to you yesterday, I'm starting to think that your reliance on "real world" concerns suggests that you're using the phrase "absolute certainty" to mean something other than absolute certainty. You haven't responded to any of my posts from yesterday, but to restate the point I made in the second one: is it your position that we can reduce the level of doubt as to the non-existence of some phenomena to a point at which, for all practical purposes, it is indistinguishable from zero, while conceding that some shadow of purely "academic" doubt remains? If so, then it seems that we believe exactly the same thing, but are just emphasizing different aspects of it.

Also, I realize that my first post yesterday was rather long, but I do hope you'll find time to respond to it.

[I less than three logic]

1. Based on what we know, leprechauns don't exist.
2. The claim "leprechauns exist" isn't falsifiable without knowing everything.
3. Because we don't know everything, there exists a small possibility of finding evidence for the existence of leprechauns.
This is logically absurd. (Unless statement 1 is merely synonymous with statement 3.)

The only way to make it coherent is to change statement 1 to something like "It is highly unlikely that leprechauns exist".

You're trying to have it both ways.

If your position is that we don't know enough to discount the possibility that leprechauns exist, then you cannot claim "leprechauns don't exist", which is fine if that's your position. But what you're doing here is trying to skirt that issue by making it seem as though it's rational to claim some form of "Leprechauns don't exist, but it's possible that it may turn out that they do."

"Based on what we know, leprechauns don't exist" is meaningless in this context because you affirm in statement 3 that "what we know" is insufficient to draw a conclusion regarding the existence of leprechuans.
1. It does exist, therefore it can exist. – This one is obvious, logic supports this conclusion.

2. It can exist, therefore it does exist. – This is non sequitur, logic doesn’t support this.

3. It doesn’t exist, therefore it can’t exist. – This is non sequitur also.

4. It can’t exist, therefore it doesn’t exist. – This conclusion is ok.

First, I’d like to point out the swap in the logic between the first two and the last two. It is this swap that causes the gap that seems to be causing problems.

Claims of things undetectable or not falsifiable basically eliminate 1 and 4 since we can’t provide evidence that they do exist nor evidence that they can’t exist.

The orange skeptic position seems to be using evidence that suggests something doesn’t exist to confirm it can’t exist (#3 above). This is faulty logic.

Also in regards to claims that can’t be falsified, using the argument “You can’t prove it doesn’t exist” only suports the position that it can exist. So concluding that something exists based on this argument is fallicious logic as well.

[Steven Howard]

What well-established and thoroughly tested scientific laws would have been made nonsensical by the existence of microbes?

What well-established and thoroughly tested scientific laws would be made nonsensical by the existence of leprechauns?

[tsg]

This is logically absurd. (Unless statement 1 is merely synonymous with statement 3.)

Not at all. From what we know, it is safe to conclude that, for all practical purposes, leprechauns don't exist. But we don't know everything. However unlikely, we may discover something in the future that changes that view.

If your position is that we don't know enough to discount the possibility that leprechauns exist, then you cannot claim "leprechauns don't exist", which is fine if that's your position. But what you're doing here is trying to skirt that issue by making it seem as though it's rational to claim some form of "Leprechauns don't exist, but it's possible that it may turn out that they do."

"There is no reason to believe leprechauns exist so, for all intents and purposes, they don't" if it makes you feel better. But you have to play by the same rules. If you're going to claim "leprechauns don't exist" means it is absolutely impossible, not the slightest chance in the world you can be wrong, then you had better be prepared to prove it because it will be challenged.

"Based on what we know, leprechauns don't exist" is meaningless in this context because you affirm in statement 3 that "what we know" is insufficient to draw a conclusion regarding the existence of leprechuans.

I have said no such thing. There is absolutely no evidence, and not likely to be any, for the existence of leprechauns. Based on that and the fact that the existence of leprechauns is not falsifiable, it is entirely rational to conclude that they do not, in fact, exist with the provision that we may, although very unlikely, discover something at a later date that indicates we may be wrong. You, however, are claiming that they don't exist, they can't exist under any circumstances, and we can't possibly be wrong ever. I don't see how you can make that statement rationally.

Despite the infinitesimally small level of uncertainty, I am in no danger of suddenly believing in leprechauns without sufficient evidence (which had better be extraordinary and also explain why they remained hidden for so long). There is no nagging doubt in the back of my mind, no wondering if it might be true. I do not take precautions against leprechauns on the off-chance it may be true, nor do I constantly check my pockets to make sure there isn't one there. I don't lay awake at nights wondering and there are no anti-leprechaun pest strips in my house. In short, I do not believe in leprechauns at all. And for that reason, when asked if they exist, I will respond, "no." If you choose that to mean "I don't believe they exist" and isn't really a "no" answer, then this is going to devolve into a semantic argument about what "no" means and, truthfully, I couldn't be less interested.

That said, and just to be clear, I have enjoyed this discussion and appreciate your (and everybody's) efforts at keeping it intelligent and civil, even if a little passionate at times. It's such a nice break from having to debunk fundie strawmen for the umpteen billionth time this week. :)

[Jimbo07]

The real world is the only one I know. It's where I live.

The real world is the only one I know, too.

My feeling is that the real world demands green. I merely wanted to demonstrate that uncertainty is not some sort of 'academic' discussion, but a real-world problem. I challenged you to state that you have never had to make decisions based on incomplete information.

So, if I state that the real world is green, and you continue to maintain that the real world is orange, where are we? What value an argument from real-worldidness?

Also, how do you respond to the following: there (maybe) is an objective real world, but our individual perceptions of it are (probably) subjective? If they do turn out to be subjective, whose model, based on which perceptions, is correct? Does scientific investigation have some measure of objective control? Does rhetoric? Does science have a higher degree? IF science has a higher (though imperfect) degree of objective control, what value has examining the rhetorical context (that science does not), on modelling this so-called (potentially objective) real world?

In the real world: why is rhetoric better than verbal trickery where science fails to deliver certainty?

I seriously think we should abandon pleas to the 'real world.'

You've made several errors here...

"and perhaps a mountain of poor, or contradictory evidence". You are not restricting yourself to the narrowly defined issue at hand, but attempting to apply my argument to any-and-everything.

Then I've misunderstood. Wasn't the mountain of poor or contradictory evidence part of the Leprechaun test, and therefore a foundation of orange?


That's why the Leprechaun Test. An orange looks at the situation ("Do leprechauns exist?") and says, "superstitious origin, no credible evidence, violates everything we know about physics and biology, it's false, no qualifiers, no hedges, end of story, game over, pure bunk."

Don't you then apply the Leprechaun test to any claim that I say cannot be disproved with 100% certainty (which I have claimed to be "any-and-everything")?


Let's stick to the topic of discussion. Explain to me why my methods for determining that 'residual doubt in the cases under consideration is not sustainable when we move from "paper" to actuality'

Since I don't think we're in a 'paper' vs. 'actuality' discussion (per my points above), or at least, we're not yet in agreement on how best to make decisions about the nature of the real world, what good either of us explaining anything?

This was my new tack, regarding my first post in this thread. I wanted to clear out the real world argument. I wasn't attempting to debate orange vs. green. I'm green, you're orange. Agree to disagree...

... btw, how is taking this through 3 threads now 'agreeing to disagree?' ;)


are not reasonable and rational, but rather are some sort of faith or religion.

False dichotomy? Can't someone reasonably make a leap of faith?

Anyway, I want to echo folks in saying that I've really enjoyed these threads. I've appreciated everyones' (largely) civil posts, and I've admired Piggy's willingness to continue extolling the orange position in the face of numerous questions.

[.13.]

Well, the conxns are getting a little hard to follow, but it certainly seems that this weakness has been admitted to by greens on this thread -- however, greens probably do not consider it a weakness.

But just so's I understand you....

Are you saying that the green methodology does not demand real-world doubt, or a real-world obligation to be open to new evidence -- in cases such as Sagan's Dragon?

From my POV, building untestability into a claim such as that is a mere rhetorical trick. To my mind, if a methodology obliges us to stop short of an unqualified "No" merely because an absurd claim is phrased in such a way that it is defined as un-disprovable, that's a weakness.

On the other hand, you may be totally comfortable with that.

But in the world I live in, there ain't no dragons, there ain't no leprechauns, and any theory that says with a straight face that I have any obligation to allow any doubt about that is flawed.

But the point is that a "rethorical trick" doesn't prove the claim or even shift the burden of proof. It is the responsibility of individual skeptics to notice the "rethorical tricks". Please explain why do you think it is a weaknes in the methodology itself?

It is in my book.

...

Do you admit any shred of doubt about the falsity of his untestable claim?

I don't. And part of the reason is that, in order to be true, it would require us to rethink modern science from the ground up.

In the case of unsupported claims, the existence of tested and accepted scientific paradigms opposing them is most definitely evidence against them.

The doubt is there. But remember that the onus is on the kid to prove his claim. I don't have to leave any more doubt than is necessary. The extent of my doubt goes as far as being open to new evidence.


But we're back to the difference between "evidence" and "sufficient evidence". Just because evidence is not sufficient does not mean it should be dismissed as evidence altogether.

I didn't say I dismiss current scientific paradigm. I said:
"If a claim goes against the current paradigm it only means that evidence needed to support the claim must be stronger than if it didn't go against it, before the claim should be accepted."

As I have tried to explain:
The paradigm shifts when evidence requires it. Claims or evidence are not dismissed because they contradict the current paradigm.


I, on the other hand, think it's absurd not to ask who's making a claim, and why, under the circumstances that the claim itself has no discernable merit beyond being un-disprovable.


I guess I don't have the same propensity to engage in informal logical fallacies.

But being un-disprovable is not a merit! If the evidence is insufficient the claim is rejected untill sufficient evidence is provided. There is no need to engage in fallacies.


It's not a matter of good or bad -- most of the time.

It's just that one can't have it both ways. One can't say, on the one hand, that a claim is false, and on the other hand say that there's a chance that new evidence may emerge which shows that it's not.

Ofcourse one can say that. Being open to new evidence doesn't mean a claim is not considered false untill sufficient evidence is given.


If there's a chance that new evidence might be produced, we cannot say that a claim has been falsified.


But we don't have to falsify the claim! Onus is on the claimant.



If a claim has been falsified, it follows from there that there's no chance that new evidence will ever be produced.

But the point is that the claim may not have been falsified. Especially if the methods used are fallacious.



Btw, here's where the bad part can come in -- take the example of Holocaust deniers or creationists. Throwing them the lagnappe of agreeing that evidence proving them right might one day be produced is not only contrary to fact, but also dangerous.

Dangerous how?


Balderdash! By using the language "only my assertion", you imply that I've plucked an opinion out the air and have offered no justification for it, and this is not the case.

If you do not accept the validity of my methods, then you will disagree that these claims have been fully falsified -- I understand that. But that does not make my assertion arbitrary or unfounded, as you are implying. It is reasoned and rational.

If you want to draw a hard line at the borders of logical and scientific methodology, so be it. To my way of thinking, that approach is unreasonably limited and unrealistic.

Do you have another means to support the assertion besides fallacies?



Doubt in itself is not a flaw.

Unreasonable doubt, however, is.

Why, especially when all that doubt requires is to be open to new evidence?


But orange methodology offers further tools by which we can, in some cases, reasonably and rationally conclude that the doubt arising from the logical/scientific model is merely an artifact of the model, and not in any way part of the world we live in.

Are there non-fallacious tools?


You're going to have to explain the bit about "indoctrination". I don't understand what you're referring to.

You have said that leprechauns don't exist and you are not open to new evidence. You are claiming infallibility. Orange position of leprechauns is not skeptical of itself.


Rejection of all ad hominem arguments out of hand is, in my opinion, mere dogmatism. I believe the Down East Ernie example covers my position on that.

It doesn't. You set up an example and defined the offer illegitimate.


As I've stated before, from a rhetorical point of view, it's perfectly legitimate to ask questions such as: Who is making this claim? To whom are they making it? Are they trustworthy? Are they sane? What's their record? What other sorts of claims have they made? What might their motives be? What have they said at other places, at other times, to other people?

You may dismiss rhetorical analysis if you choose. I find it valuable.

Evidence should be accepted/rejected on their own merits. Character of the claimant is irrelevant.


I consider the orange method superior to the green method simply because it is more robust, and in some cases can compensate for the blind spot in green methodology.

More robust how? What blind spot, being open to new evidence?

[.13.]

What well-established and thoroughly tested scientific laws would have been made nonsensical by the existence of microbes?

I think the question should be phrased as:
What well-established and thoroughly tested scientific laws would have been made nonsensical by the existence of undetectable beings?

That is analoguous with the dragon in my garage. Orange skeptic clinging on the doctrines would have said that there are no microbes and there never will be evidence to support the claim. Not being open to new evidence would make the orange skeptic look pretty foolish.

[Piggy]

Hi, everyone.

Well, the thread is on page 4, but I'm still responding to posts from page 2.

There are some questions lingering that deserve to be answered, so if y'all don't mind, would it be ok if everyone just held off for a bit, let me catch up, maybe take some notes while I'm responding and see if your questions don't get answered in my responses to previous posts, then start the assault again when I'm up to page 4?

It would help.

Ok, back to answering Stir....

the cognitive processes by which we perceive reality are complicated beyond belief, and full of surprises. You place a lot of importance on the 'world-as-is' (you describe it as the real world and the only world that matters) ... as though that is a clear cut thing that "exists" independent of the perceiver. Many would doubt the correctness of that point of view.

I, however, do not. I firmly believe that there "is a clear cut thing that 'exists' independent of the perceiver". All our observations to date confirm this position -- it has yet to be successfully contradicted.

If you want to just whip up fantastic hypotheticals, that's your business, but there's no reason for me to take them seriously.

It's true that cognition is full of surprises. For instance, have you ever seen that experiment where people watching a film are asked to track a basketball that's being passed around, and during the film a man in an ape suit walks into the middle of the players and beats his chest then walks off, but about half the people watching it never see it? Pretty amazing stuff.

However, I don't see how any of that is relevant to the examples we're dealing with.

[Piggy]

Your analysis of rhetorical context you assert (in another post ... I haven't figured out how to insert multiple quotes into one reply) is valuable in evaluating claims ... and I agree completely. But (you knew there would be a but) this discussion is not about evaluating claims but about determining facts. And while the context of a claim helps me in evaluating how seriously to take the claim and the claimant, and how to respond, it in no way affects the underlying facts (whether underlying facts even "exist" opens a debate on the nature of reality, another topic which adds more confusion and, dare I say it, doubt).
On the contrary, this thread is entirely about evaluating claims. It is about nothing else. It is about determining whether claims are false.

The green position is that only the referent(s) of the claim can reasonably be examined.

Well, that's OK if the claim can be proven or falsified by doing so.

However, what about claims that are constructed so as not to be disprovable (e.g. Sagan's Dragon) or seem to have no referent at all (e.g., Roy's black dog)?

In these cases, demanding "Thou shalt not examine the claimant or the circumstances of the claim" is, to my mind, a totally unjustified and unreasonable restriction. I see no argument for it.

Let's take a couple of examples.

First, string theory. Is there anything in the rhetorical circumstances of the claim that can lead us to conclude "This claim is false"? I don't see anything, no. The claim, while perhaps unsupported and untestable, isn't falsified. We have to stay at "Who knows?".

Next, Roy's black dog. Is there anything in the rhetorical circumstances of the claim that can lead us to conclude "This claim is false"? You betcha! (I won't go into the details b/c these have already been laid out.)

[Piggy]

OK, I couldn't resist....

What well-established and thoroughly tested scientific laws would have been made nonsensical by the existence of undetectable beings?
Consider the generation of invisible flames which are undetectable by standard equipment but can burn a finger. Does that violate any well-established science that you know of? Or do you consider that within the realm of possibility under the current paradigms?

[Piggy]

A final point: you have stated several times (with differing words) that green is invalid because it admits doubt where there should be none, and I questioned that in my post. But isn't this just a way of saying "orange is right and green is wrong" ... i.e. a statement of your position rather than an argument for it
I don't say that green is invalid, only that it is limited, and there are means of removing those limitations in some cases which are rational and reasonable and involve no leap of faith.

But yes, this is indeed a statement of my position, not an argument for it.

[Jimbo07]

OK, I couldn't resist....


Consider the generation of invisible flames which are undetectable by standard equipment but can burn a finger. Does that violate any well-established science that you know of? Or do you consider that within the realm of possibility under the current paradigms?

[toddler]
Ethanol fires are nearly transparent.

Maybe the little blighters are hard-core neat ethanol drinkers, and are lighting streams of spewed booze!

Don'cha know, laddybuck? ;)
[/toddler=just for fun]

:D

btw, a fun book that took a stab at 'engineering' real dragons is the Flight of Dragons:

http://www.rambles.net/dickinson_dragons.html

Fiction, but there you go. :)

[Piggy]

If you accept this, shouldn't you also accept the contrary? I mean that claims that cannot be proven by scientific method or logic should be accepted on the basis of the context and so on?
Ooh, excellent point!

I believe the answer is no.

In the examples we've seen (invisible dragons, dogs that appear only to one observer, magical little people, atomic carbon dioxide, Kim Jong Il's golf game) science essentially comes up snake eyes -- nothing to see here.

So what I propose is applying rhetorical analysis in these cases to see if we can move from "unsupported, irrational, and undisproven" to "false".

But I can't think of an analogous situation in the other direction.

In other words, if science can prove or disprove the claim, then rhetorical analysis isn't needed.

[Piggy]

I. Rhetorical and Historical Context

If I understand it correctly, your argument is that, where science and logic cannot provide absolute certainty as to the non-existence of a phenomenon, such assurance can be achieved by reference to the rhetorical and historic contexts in which the existence of the phenomenon is asserted? Specifically, you argue in the case of leprechauns that because their existence is claimed historically only in mythology, and in the present day only by people who have been indoctrinated to believe in them and whose views are considered on the fringe of society, when coupled with the lack of empirical evidence for the existence of leprechauns, we can therefore be absolutely certain that leprechauns do not exist?

That makes no sense whatsoever to me. The fact that leprechauns are a "fringe" belief, and exist largely in mythology, can certainly be taken to lower the probability that leprechauns exist in reality, but you've provided no explanation for how you get from "low probability" to "absolutely not." Is it conceivable that beliefs for which the primary evidence is mythological may nevertheless be true? (Yes, it is. The city of Troy was considered purely mythological in the ninetheenth century until Schliemann discovered the ruins by following the directions in the Iliad.) If that's the case, then this fact does not establish absolute certainty as to the non-existence of a phenomenon. It only provides a rational basis for assigning a low probability to the reality of the phenomenon in question.
Because accepting the existence of the city of Troy does not involve accepting the existence of magical beings, the orange position would never have been to declare the claim false. The 2 cases are not similar.

[Piggy]

The same goes for the "rhetorical context," i.e., the argument that beliefs espoused by groups outside the mainstream can be said with absolute certainty to be false when no corroborating empirical evidence exists.
It is not, and has never been, my position that "beliefs espoused by groups outside the mainstream can be said with absolute certainty to be false when no corroborating empirical evidence exists."

I have already mentioned string theory in this regard.

[Piggy]

Is it likely that the Scientologists are correct, or that your stepfather actually saw an invisible black dog? It is highly unlikely, but in neither case does the rhetorical context move us from the realm of low probability into the realm of absolute certainty. In fact, I submit that the truth value of a proposition exists entirely independently of the individual asserting that proposition. Facts about the claimant might be relevant to assigning a probability to the claim (implausible claims made by someone we trust can rationally be regarded as more likely to be true than implausible claims made by a person we know to be a liar, or not in his/her right mind), but I can't conceive how the identity of the claimant could ever establish with absolute certainty the truth or falsity of the claim.
I don't know much about the Scientologists, but in the case of Roy's black dog, you bet we arrive at absolute certainty.

You may "submit that the truth value of a proposition exists entirely independently of the individual asserting that proposition", and in a sense you're right. It does "exist" independently. But that's not the question. The quesion is whether we can arrive at a correct judgment of this truth value by examining the claimant as well as the claim.

And so far, I see absolutely no support for your assertion that examination of the claimant can never be of decisive value.

Let's take the case of Kim Jong Il's golf game. The man says he shot 11 holes in one the first time he played.

Your position would be to ignore the claim's context altogether. By blinkering yourself in this fashion (for reasons that I confess I cannot comprehend) you are left to conclude... since it's highly unlikely -- unprecedented, in fact, to say the least -- but you weren't there, and his caddy and attendants agree with him, but there's no documentary evidence... that, well, you personally don't believe it's true, but you can't say that it didn't happen.

What a load of nonsense. You, with your green orthodoxy, are left admitting doubt where none is merited.

The orange skeptic, however, evaluates the more-than-simply-implausible grandiosity of the claim, the history of the game of golf, the history of this megalomaniacal dictator who has a pattern of outrageously self-flattering lies, and concludes in no uncertain terms, "B******t! That's a f*****g lie and you know it!"

The orange skeptic has the stones to call a shovel a shovel, while the green skeptic is left impotently mumbling about the identity of the claimant never establishing with absolute certainty the falsity of the claim.

Now, back to Roy's black dog....

If you honestly believe that Roy's state of mind and my state of mind and my mother's state of mind are irrelevant, when determining whether the claim of a dog that can only be seen by one person, is false... then you'd better explain why. Seems to me you're just sticking to your dogma in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

Of course it matters that Roy was hallucinatory. Of course it matters that we weren't. Of course it matters that it was broad daylight, the yard was small, he pointed out the spot, and there's a 7 foot fence. To deny this is irrational.

And yet you say that my approach is irrational? Give me a break!

Your argument proves its own inanity.

[Piggy]

Finally, you said in a few places regarding this issue that green skepticism artificially creates doubt where there is none, and compared it to the homeopathic practice of diluting a solution until not a single molecule of the active ingredient is present. I don't think that this is a fair or accurate analogy, since doubt, an abstract concept, is not atomistic as matter is, such that it can be entirely removed by "dilution" with more and more empirical evidence.
Don't sweat it. It's just a metaphor (not an analogy). What I'm saying is that the levels of doubt you're talking about cannot be sustained in real life. They're meaningless. They aren't.

What's the level of doubt that the moon landings have all been faked, even if we don't consider the details of the physical evidence?

None.

Maybe you know some formula (I don't) whereby you can calculate the odds that a hoax on this scale could be perpetrated. Or maybe you can simply appeal to the "It's not physically impossible" argument.

But in the world I live in, there are too many mechanisms to prevent it, and too many resources that would need to be harnessed, to make it possible.

The moon landings were not faked. Period. I don't have to examine any photographs or tapes of radio transmissions to be able to assert this with absolute certainty.

And if you say that there's any actual doubt about that, you're either fooling yourself or trying to fool someone else.

[Piggy]

II. Analysis of the Claim's Ramifications, or Comparison of True/False Alternatives

Again, this is a purely probabilistic criterion. The fact that thousands of people would have to be involved in fabricating the existence of China makes the fabrication hypothesis exceedingly unlikely-- it does not in any way establish absolute certainty as to the non-existence of a China conspiracy!
You and I live on different planets. brother.

If you think there is any real-world possibility that China isn't real, there's no point in us talking about anything -- which is actually the thrust of this whole thread.

I'm serious here. If you can entertain even the remotest possibility of a "China conspiracy" then we got nothing to say.

That kind of non-thinking, that kind of dogmatic refusal to pull one's head out of the books and wake up and smell the coffee, is exactly the sort of nonsensical green mentality I utterly reject, without apology.

Go live in your theory. I'll stay here in the real world.

[Piggy]

Is this true? I'd have to be bloody bonkers to believe that it is. Can I be absolutely certain that it's false? No, I can't.
OK, so what you're saying is that you can't tell whether or not you're bonkers?

For once we agree.

[hammegk]

... I firmly believe that there "is a clear cut thing that 'exists' independent of the perceiver". All our observations to date confirm this position -- it has yet to be successfully contradicted.
Who is that "I"?

Independent of what perceiver? Piggy? Yeah, what-exists, within the error limits of science to observe it appears objective.

Piggy 1. Thinks, 2. Thinks 'something else' - let's call it matter - exists since he 'thinks' he perceives it, 3. Firmly believes (now that is a goood phrase ... how 'firmly' is that?) 'something else' is all that exists.

Bye-bye, Piggy .... Unless of course you actually are a silly, illogical interactive dualist of some variety. ;)


Me? I'm 100% certain Thought Exists .... :)

[Piggy]

I don't see how dismissing a valid counterargument as a "verbal trick" gets you very far in your quest for certainty.
This so-called counterargument (about leprechauns being so clever we can't catch them, etc.) cannot be described as valid. It's a classic toddler defense.

The irony here is so thick you could cut it with a steak knife.

You have the stones to level a "Thou shalt not" at rhetorical analysis, to arbitrarily declare investigation of a claimant out of bounds, and yet demand that I grant validity to this factum ex anus?

Let's see how you yourself describe it....

Yes, of course it is an "unsupported and unsupportable" argument that I "whipped up on the spot." Absolutely.

Oh-kaaaaayyyyy....

It's also an irrebuttable epistemological obstacle to your claim of absolute certainty in the non-existence of leprechauns.
In other words, verbal trickery, and a toddler defense. It does not deserve to be granted plausibility.

[Piggy]

At the risk of opening up a new can of worms, it might help to illuminate my commitment to the green flavor of skepticism to explain that my view of the impossibility of demonstrating with absolute certainty the non-existence of any external entity is a logical outgrowth of my view regarding the impossibility of demonsrating with absolute certainty the existence of any external entity.
If you want to play with this little philosophical toy of positing that external reality isn't real, knock yourself out.

The world I live in has proven itself without fail to be real and consistent.

Without fail.

You want to claim that the world is a delusion caused by a demon, or a matrix, go right ahead.

Because even if it is, it doesn't matter.

Why not? Because regardless of what's generating our experience, it consistently behaves like an actual, consistent, totally physical world. So everything I'm talking about here works in that world, even if it's generated by little green men.

[Piggy]

It seems like you're equivocating a bit with your distinction between "real-world" and (presumably) "not-real-world." Green skeptics admit that for all practical purposes, the level of doubt in the non-existence of an entity can be reduced to a level indistinguishable from zero. The debate I thought we were having lies purely in the "abstract" world of ideas, where the difference between 99.9999999% and 100% is an insurmountable chasm. If you admit the existence of a lingering, "academic" doubt that has no appreciable effect on our "real-world" calculations, then it seems that you and I believe the same thing.
Let there be no mistake, I am absolutely not talking about anything in any abstract world of ideas. I don't live in that world. I don't care what happens there.

Here's what I said in the parent thread:
The orange position, then, can be formulated this way: There are cases in which the gap between "Extremely unlikely" and "No" in the purely logical/scientific model is the result of the limitations of the model, and this can be checked for by verification of the model against our wider experience with the real world, without a leap of faith.

If you're talking about levels of doubt that exist only on paper, this is all a waste of time.

[Piggy]

I wonder, do you think there are any "pardigm shifts" (I don't really like that term, but whatever) left in science?
Why not? I hope so.

Do you think that there are any true things that, if a 10 year old boy came to you and offered no way of proving them, and no reason for why he knew it, you would feel justified in dismissing as certainly not true?
I doubt it. See post #143.

It seems to me that your point about rhetorical context is that no one would ever make those kinds of claims (true claims that only appear rediculous because we don't know enough about the world). So we don't have to worry about dismissing them.
Not necessarily. People can be coincidentally right. It happens all the time in small ways. That fact must be considered when examining rhetorical context.

In a time before micro-organisms were known to exist, before microscopes were invented, the claim that they did exist would have seemed un-disprovable.
Yes, but that's no reason to claim it's false, even by orange standards. Orange skepticism doesn't automatically move to "false" just because a claim is unsupported, or even un-disprovable.

Do you think that no more such advances in science will occur, or is your position that no one would ever make those claims*, because they would not have access to that knowledge, and that's why we can say that the claims they do make (that fit the other criteria of dismissal) can be said to be certainly false?

*or if they did, there would also be evidence that they came by that knowledge through a process of discovery - probably published in a peer reviewed journal, and so their claim would not be dismissed by an orange skeptic.
Maybe this example divorced from the world of science will help clarify.

Suppose my buddy says "I can pick tomorrow's lottery numbers". He then rattles off six numbers.

He has no way of knowing what those numbers will be. There's no method by which he could know them. Is he right?

Maybe. Probably not, but maybe. Would I bet that he's wrong? Of course! I'd be stupid not to. But I don't know if he's wrong til the numbers are drawn.

In order to get to "false", there should be at least (1) a complete lack of credible confirmation, and (2) some violation of what is already accepted as true or plausible; coupled with (a) an alternate explanation -- of the phenomenon or the claim itself -- that is consistent with what is known, and/or (b) a reason to believe that the claim has been posited for reasons other than the claim's status as truth.

Even those circumstances might not get you to "No." Athon was correct in saying that rhetorical analysis is softer than logic or science. And if you demand the rigidity of logical/scientific proof, you're a green.

Me? I call b******t on Kim Jong Il's golf game, leprechauns, invisible dragons, atomic carbon dioxide, and (as much as I loved the man) Roy's black dog.

And the process I used to determine the falsity of these claims -- which is also the process that I believe many people on this forum, in their heart of hearts, also use to determine their falsity, even if they argue the green position from an intellectual standpoint -- has nothing to do with faith, but is sensible, reasonable, and rational.

[Piggy]

To me, I can't see how two kinds of 'evidence' can be equally valid.
Why not?

Do you recognize logic and science to be equally valid? If not, which is preferred and why?

What about logic and math? Math and science?

What about direct and circumstantial evidence presented at trial? On the whole, circumstantial evidence tends to be stronger, but not always. And when they're at their strongest, they are equally valid.

But on another level, I'm not claiming equal validity at all. Science and logic take precedent in this way: A claim may be proven or disproven, in some cases, by logical or scientific means alone, without reference to rhetorical analysis or other "orange" methods. However, I can't think of an instance (doesn't mean there isn't one) when I would accept rhetorical analysis alone without reference to some logical or scientific evidence. (Although this gets tricky b/c logical analysis is used in rhetorical analysis, as is investigation of the factual basis of a claim.)

Even evaluating alternatives (such as in the moon landing hoax example) requires some knowledge of hard factual data.

[Piggy]

We have no tools which we can use which can draw the line between 'completely absurd' and 'really, really unlikely', afterall. However I suspect that's what the 'orange' position is about; stating that we do have the tools to do such a thing.
That's correct. Orange methods affirm that, sometimes, we do. As in Kim Jung Il's claim about his golf game, and Roy's claim to be staring at a little black dog.

[Piggy]

Orange asks for 'context', and draws objective conclusions from it. However the problem is that context itself can never be assumed to be completely known, either, and relies on subjective interpretation.
Context doesn't have to be completely known. Subjective interpretation doesn't have to be eliminated.

It's the same for science.

To draw conclusions, science doesn't have to know all facts about the world, just the ones that are relevant to the question at hand. And there is always some degree of interpretation when conclusions are drawn. Data isn't information, and information isn't knowledge.

[Piggy]

Any chance you could explain how these other methods are valid in their presentation of evidence? It feels far too vague, like 'oh, he's mad, which in context means what he's saying is nonsense'.
That's a very good point, and I think it gets to the heart of (what I perceive as) the reluctance of greens to accept orange methods as worthy of consideration.

At the end of the day, the validity of any method resides in its ability to get results that work, and its ability to avoid results that are ridiculous.

Green methodology has an impeccable record on the first count. That's why it deserves not just respect, but -- dare I say it? -- awe.

But orange methods have their realm of influence, too. In our courts, for example.

The problem is, as you point out, that orange methods are softer, more easily mistaken, more easily manipulated and faked.

By themselves, orange methods are of limited value. In the courts, they usually have to be satisfied with levels of proof such as "beyond reasonable doubt" and "by a preponderance of the evidence". And even so, as the DNA revolution has shown us, even "beyond reasonable doubt" can be demonstrated to be not at all beyond reasonable doubt when science is applied to the question.

Are they sensible, rational, and reasonable? Certainly. They are not mere belief, mere faith. They are not divination, not in any way akin to astrology, tarot card reading, crystology, or ESP.

But are they valid? Well, yes, when undertaken with due diligence. Courts of law, as it turns out, are in many ways very unsuitable places for use of this kind of proof, sad to say. In a court, there are adversarial positions, and means of limiting what evidence is presented.

By the same token, in courts, science also can be warped and manipulated so that a jury is left believing that science says what in fact it does not say.

However -- and here is perhaps the most important point -- in the cases I describe, we're talking about rhetorical investigations that are free from those obstacles.

Does that mean we will always be able to reach certitude by orange means? Nope. But sometimes we can.

Take Kim Jong Il's golf score, which I've been obsessed with lately. A strictly logical/scientific analysis leaves residual doubt about whether the claim is true. But the rhetorical analysis, which in this case is easily performed (which is why I use it as an example), leaves no room for doubt. At least, no room that can be sustained in the world-as-we-know-it.

That's why they're valid. That's how they can be used in ways that can yield results we can be sure of.

In the example of Roy's black dog, the examination of the rhetorical context of the claim reveals not only that Roy hallucinates. That would not be sufficient to get to falsity. After all, Roy also believed that he was standing in his living room and looking at his back yard in the company of his wife and step-son, all of which was true.

The full analysis reveals that Roy suffered from hallucinosis, that the back yard was securely fenced, that the dog was not seen by 2 other witnesses who did not suffer hallucinosis, that the sighting was made in broad daylight, that Roy pointed out precisely where the alleged dog allegedly sat, that the other 2 witnesses had a clear view of that spot, that they did not dismiss Roy's question "Where'd that dog come from?" out of hand without investigation, that the cats showed no interest in the scene (which they would be likely to do if a dog were present), that no neighbor owned a black dog, that no black dog was reported loose or missing in the area, etc.

In a case like this, the margin of residual doubt left from the scientific/logical model is reasonably filled by the rational consideration of the context of the claim, and we get to "false" with no realistic margin of error.

[Piggy]

Is there the possibility that the Nazi Holocaust was a hoax? The details and lengths that a body of people would have to go to in order to perpetuate this, I would say it is so close to impossible that I accept it as 'impossible'. I also accept the remote but equally plausible possibility that I am misinformed, that there is information I don't have and that I am opting to believe in people who are lying.
That's a feat of intellectual gymnastics that I just don't understand.

What you seem to be saying is that you accept that it's impossible that the Holocaust could be faked, but you also accept that it's possible that it might have been.

It's this kind of waffling that drives me crazy.

So let's pony up here.

Do you believe that there's any chance in the real world that the Holocaust is a hoax?

If you don't, then you believe that the statement "The Holocaust is a hoax" is false, and that there will never be any evidence showing that it was a hoax.

If you do, then you must affirm something like the statement "It is extremely unlikely that the Holocaust was a hoax" and concede that it's possible that evidence showing that it was a hoax may someday be uncovered.

OK, I gotta pull myself away from this screen or face dire consequences. "Attention must be paid!" I've made a lot of progress tonight and I hope that I'll be able to catch up sometime tomorrow and the assault may resume.

Thanks to everyone for your input and your patience.

[JamesDillon]

Let there be no mistake, I am absolutely not talking about anything in any abstract world of ideas. I don't live in that world. I don't care what happens there.

Here's what I said in the parent thread:

The orange position, then, can be formulated this way: There are cases in which the gap between "Extremely unlikely" and "No" in the purely logical/scientific model is the result of the limitations of the model, and this can be checked for by verification of the model against our wider experience with the real world, without a leap of faith.

Can we pursue this for a moment, to the exclusion of all the other issues raised in my post? I think this is really where the difference between our views lies, and I'm starting to suspect that it isn't so much a difference of substance at all, but only one of perspective.

Can you please elaborate as to the distinction you draw between the "real world" and the "world on paper"/"abstract world of ideas"? I honestly don't understand quite what it is you're getting at here. Are we talking about doubt that can make some appreciable difference in actual belief formation, or any doubt? I think that we greens have pretty consistently conceded that it is possible to reduce the level of doubt as to the non-existence of a given phenomenon to such a degree that it is rationally permissible to ignore it altogether.

Can you please tell me whether the following language is an accurate statement of orange skepticism as you conceive it? If so, then I think orange and green are the same thing. If not, why not?

On the basis of the available empirical evidence, including but not limited to the historical and rhetorical contexts in which a particular claim is made, it is possible to reduce the level of doubt as to the non-existence of a given phenomenon to a point at which it is [I]indistinguishable from zero for all practical purposes, and the non-existence of the phenomenon in question may be safely and rationally regarded as established with certainty. Although some infinitesimal level of doubt may theoretically remain, the actual probability of the existence of the phenomenon is so low that this doubt may be rationally disregarded altogether.

Edit: Gah! Sorry, I didn't realize that you weren't done responding to the last wave yet. Feel free to disregard this until you're caught up.

[athon]

It's odd. On one hand, your arguments are getting weaker and weaker, and still don't seem to be avoiding an appeal to emotional reasoning. On the other, you have fought with tenacity and spent a lot of time replying... which earns some respect. So, it only serves that I try my best to respond in spite of my beginning to think we might be reaching the 'agree to disagree' part.

"But how do you know these tools are valid?" asks the greenie.

"The same way we know science and logic are valid," answers the oranger, "because when properly applied, they work."

Green philosophy, however, always leaves that room for doubt in situations when possible evidence might come up, no matter how remote. Hence will always be valid simply because it is more self-correcting.

Orange, on account of finding a 'close point' to evidence, will inevitably encounter a situation where it remains incorrect on account of not being challenged by new evidence.

Interestingly, I attended a seminar today on culture which was bloody interesting. A large proportion was on Australian Indigenous culture, and there was a small account of several early anthroplogists' opinions on whether a given area within the Simpson desert could sustain human existance. The consensus was 'no bloody way'. Physically impossible; no food, no water, the heat... nope. There was a tribe who lived quite well in that area, to the shock of the explorers.

According to the context held by the explorers, they assumed people couldn't survive in the area. And they were right; in that context, which was wrong, it would have been impossible. However, context was key.

Point is, at what point do you think you have 100% of the context?

Why not?

Do you recognize logic and science to be equally valid? If not, which is preferred and why? *snip*

I assume you don't need me to answer every example, so I'll give a succinct response; depending on the situation, a given methodology will always produce superior evidence. Science, as a flexible system of tools, can't be seen as a single methodology but rather a self-correcting way of gathering forms of evidence. Obviously some tools will be superior to others in varying situations.

Context doesn't have to be completely known. Subjective interpretation doesn't have to be eliminated.

It's the same for science.

To draw conclusions, science doesn't have to know all facts about the world, just the ones that are relevant to the question at hand. And there is always some degree of interpretation when conclusions are drawn. Data isn't information, and information isn't knowledge.

But this is the problem; so-called 'green' skepticism leaves doubt as compensation for a reduced context. By conceding that subjectivity exists and that our senses cannot possibly observe the entire context, we must balance that with doubt. The more context, the less subjectivity, the smaller the doubt. However as context can never be 100% and subjectivity never be 0%, doubt must always have a figure.

(I used bold just to highlight it as a key point in this debate).

But orange methods have their realm of influence, too. In our courts, for example.

And also happens to be a great flaw in the history of our court systems. Variations in where a person's line of 'absolute ridiculousness' can be drawn have seen many wrong conclusions being drawn.

Are they sensible, rational, and reasonable? Certainly.

How? Saying it does not make it so!

I challenge that they are irrational because the point at which a person decides something is absolutely ridiculous varies subjectively. Rational, sensible things are consistent regardless of time or emotion. They are the same for you as they are for me.

Evidence accumulation is sensible, and the same for green and orange. That is logical. Where the system changes and becomes irrational is where we decide we are confident enough that the evidence is sufficient for a possibility to become a probability. That varies from person to person regardless of the method of skepticism, hence does not rely on logic but subjective reasoning. We therefore have doubt to concede this inconsistancy.

By the same token, in courts, science also can be warped and manipulated so that a jury is left believing that science says what in fact it does not say.

Small point; I can't help notice you seem to be slightly misrepresenting the contrast. Science itself can only be communicated in court; the science itself might be sound, but how it is conveyed can be twisted.

Rhetorical analysis is dependent on the subjectivity of the communicator, however.

What you seem to be saying is that you accept that it's impossible that the Holocaust could be faked, but you also accept that it's possible that it might have been.

No. Let me rephrase it then; what would it take for the Holocaust to be faked for my observance? I know of it through books, several films and a single individual who lost his grandparents in it. What would it take for all this to be wrong? I know books and films can be fabricated, so there is no physical law preventing this. I know people can be lied to, so my friend's grandparents might be still alive, for argument's sake. Therefore, the reasons for me drawing my personal conclusions on the reality of the holocaust must rely on my confidence on the evidence I have seen, and my rational faculties in evaluating it all. On this basis, I feel fully confident it was real.

If I were to use emotional reasoning, I would feel it would be impossible that it was not an actual event. However, knowing that emotional reasoning can on occasion be erroneous, I must insert an iota of doubt.

If you do, then you must affirm something like the statement "It is extremely unlikely that the Holocaust was a hoax" and concede that it's possible that evidence showing that it was a hoax may someday be uncovered.

Very well.

I guess the bottom line is this; we have no means of deciding when enough evidence is accumulated to make something 100% certain. I'm not even 100% certain that the laws of the universe are consistant with time and space; they seem to be, and have been for a long time in this plart of the universe, at least to my present knowledge. But things could change, and maybe could have changed momentarily in localities of the universe in the past. I don't believe that, however cannot find any cause to discount it. I guess it's a foundation of my 'faith'; laws are consistent and predictable.

Athon

[athon]

Small point that's been nagging me from the start; orange skepticism seems to be something of an oxymoron.

Skepticism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skepti) is restraint from absolute certainty.

Athon

[Gaga]

Ooh, excellent point!

I believe the answer is no.
why not? the main issue I have with your line of reasoning is that you are moving from an objective point of view to a subjective one, where (almost) all is legit. e.g. I could consider Kim jung Il as a sincere person, not akin to pranks and a good golf player and therefore give credit to his story... (BTW Athon is explaining this much better than I could)
In the examples we've seen (invisible dragons, dogs that appear only to one observer, magical little people, atomic carbon dioxide, Kim Jong Il's golf game) science essentially comes up snake eyes -- nothing to see here.

So what I propose is applying rhetorical analysis in these cases to see if we can move from "unsupported, irrational, and undisproven" to "false".

But I can't think of an analogous situation in the other direction. the first thing that came to my mind was theism, but we've decided to drop it to avoid distractions from the current discussion. The examples we've seen are outlandish claims and/or fabrications, I'll think of something else during the lunch break... Maybe I can find something "arguably supported, barely rational and undisproven" that I can move from bunk to reality with a sleight of hand :)

[.13.]

Consider the generation of invisible flames which are undetectable by standard equipment but can burn a finger. Does that violate any well-established science that you know of? Or do you consider that within the realm of possibility under the current paradigms?

Well if the flame could burn a finger it would hardly be undetectable.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Carl Sagan :
"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"

Suppose I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence.

"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside -- no dragon.

"Where's the dragon?" you ask.

"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.

"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."

Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."

You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."

And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.

The only thing you've really learned from my insistence that there's a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You'd wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind. But then, why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I've seriously underestimated human fallibility.

Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don't outright reject the notion that there's a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold. Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you're prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you. Surely it's unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative -- merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of "not proved."

Now another scenario: Suppose it's not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you're pretty sure don't know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages -- but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we're disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I'd rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren't myths at all.

Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they're never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon's fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such "evidence" -- no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it -- is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.



Piggy
The green position is that, in the absence of scientific or logical disproof, the most we can do is to tentatively (but not absolutely) dismiss the claim, be open to the possibility of new evidence, and declare that the chances are so slim that it's safe to behave as though the claim were not true. However, we cannot rationally reach an absolute assertion of falsity..

This is the green position in the case of fire breathing dragons living in garages? Or does the green position extend to anything which does not appear to be susceptible to scientific proof?

[Piggy]

Wherein Piggy visits his therapist, Dr. Greene

DG: Good morning, Piggy. Are you all caught up?

P: No. I still have some posts to work through.

DG: OK. Well, I sensed some aggression in one of your posts about Kim Jong Il. You seem to be very upset about a golf score.

P: It's not the golf score, really. It stands for other things, too.

DG: Hmmm... <scribbles on note pad> What "things"?

P: I don't care to discuss that now.

DG: Why not?

P: Because we have to work through the core issue first. If we don't, then if we talk about really important things, then we'll always be coming back to this and arguing the basic contention.

DG: I see. But do you really believe that a green skeptic wouldn't be able to call that a lie? Haven't you read the posts that said...

P: <interrupting> I know, doc, I know. But that's what gets me. I don't understand how they can have it both ways.

DG: Both ways?

P: If this level of doubt they're talking about is so small that it doesn't matter in the real world, and they feel no qualms about saying "That's a lie", then in what way is it meaningful to also say that there's any real doubt? And how can they say that we must actually be open to any possibility of new evidence? Even more important, how in the world can they claim that it is in any way not sensible, or mere "faith", to describe that doubt as non-existent in the real world?

DG: "They"? You sound a little paranoid.

P: Well, yeah, but.... Wait, don't distract me here. I think they must be confusing doubt in the model for actual doubt in real life. Either that or they're so married to their method as the only valid one that could possibly exist, that they're willing to ignore the reasonable, rational, sensible ways in which they themselves move to an unqualified "That's a lie" in real life, and are willing to posit some leap of faith, based only on the model, not on reality as we know it.

DG: Interesting <looks at watch>.

P: Some of them are so adamant in defending the model that they're willing to suggest that reality doesn't exist. But if reality fails, then all models fail with it. Now doesn't that seem...

DG: <interrupting> Our time's up for today. Do try to catch up you work.

[athon]

Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, Piggy.

Athon

[JamesDillon]

Sorry, there's no need for anyone to respond to this and I don't mean to clutter up the thread, but as an attorney I feel the need to respond to this:

But orange methods have their realm of influence, too. In our courts, for example.


And also happens to be a great flaw in the history of our court systems. Variations in where a person's line of 'absolute ridiculousness' can be drawn have seen many wrong conclusions being drawn.

The court system does not, ever, presume the possibility of orange skepticism! That's why criminals may be convicted if a jury finds them guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt," not "no doubt." There is no situation in which the Anglo-American common law system assumes that a finding of fact with no doubt is possible; rather, it assumes that it is possible to reduce doubt as to the truth of a proposition to a degree at which it is reasonable to believe that proposition despite the fact that some lingering doubt may persist. I would think this is more consistent with green skepticism than with orange.

[athon]

Good point, James, and it's something I do understand. My foolishness for playing along with that one. Mea culpa.

Thanks.

Athon

[Jimbo07]

athon, your link is broken...

[Piggy]

The court system does not, ever, presume the possibility of orange skepticism! That's why criminals may be convicted if a jury finds them guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt," not "no doubt." There is no situation in which the Anglo-American common law system assumes that a finding of fact with no doubt is possible; rather, it assumes that it is possible to reduce doubt as to the truth of a proposition to a degree at which it is reasonable to believe that proposition despite the fact that some lingering doubt may persist. I would think this is more consistent with green skepticism than with orange.
I'm not caught up yet, but...

I noticed this one here on my lunch break and wanted to deal with it.

It was just my sloppy phrasing, JD. Sorry about that.

By "orange methods", I wasn't referring to "orange skepticism". In what I call "orange skepticism", certain non-scientific methods are used to bridge the microscopic gap of doubt remaining from scientific inquiry in certain cases.

These "orange methods" include investigating the person making the claim, investigating the circumstances under which the claim was made, that sort of thing.

Breaking it down, what I propose is that (1) besides pure logic and the scientific method, there are other sensible approaches to investigating claims, and (2) these can be used in some cases to remove any remaining real-world doubt.

I mentioned the court only with regard to the first proposition -- that these methods are rational, sensible, and reasonable... as opposed to irrational, unreasonable, faith-based, etc.

In fact, I specifically made the point that in courts we only get to "beyond reasonable doubt" or "a preponderance of the evidence".

My arguments in support of my contention that these methods can in some cases be used to get to "False" (or absolute "No) are of another sort.

But simply addressing the issue of whether these methods are sensible, it's very difficult for me to understand how anyone can claim that they're not.

If you argue that the methods are, in themselves, not rational and reasonable, then you argue that our courts are irrational and unreasonable.

As a counter example, consider trial by ordeal. That method of inquiry is irrational, and judgments made on that basis are unreasonable. Ditto for reading tea leaves, or ESP, or crystology.

Whether these reasonable methods can get you to absolute falsification in a given question... that’s another matter.

When I apply them to the issue of Roy's black dog, for example, as I have done above, greens will not agree that they are sufficient to get to an unqualified "No". But it seems outrageous and absurd to claim that they are not reasonable, not rational, not sensible.

Sorry for the confusion.

I'll try to get caught all the way up on the posts this evening -- it will help if folks just hold off a bit til I can do that. I may answer your question when I respond to the existing posts.

Thanks.

[athon]

athon, your link is broken...

Man, that's almost as embarrassing as somebody pointing out that your fly is down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeptic

Athon

[Piggy]

Hi, folks. Electrical storm last night, so the machine was down. Will do some catching up at lunch if I can, then more tonight if the coast is clear.

Thanks again for all the interest.

"Don't give me no trouble, or I'll call up my double, we'll play piggy-in-the-middle with you." John Prine

[Jimbo07]

Hi, folks. Electrical storm last night, so the machine was down. Will do some catching up at lunch if I can, then more tonight

Bah!

I usually drop out of threads after two or three days of intense posting.

Feel free just to take a break!

[JamesDillon]

Where did all the other oranges go, anyway? Piggy is doing a great job taking on a thread full of opponents, but I seem to recall there were quite a few professed oranges in the last thread. Maybe some of them have seen the light (green, of course), but if not, I'm sure the thread (and Piggy's real life) could benefit by having some additional orange apologists.

[Gaga]

Where did all the other oranges go, anyway? Piggy is doing a great job taking on a thread full of opponents, but I seem to recall there were quite a few professed oranges in the last thread. Maybe some of them have seen the light (green, of course), but if not, I'm sure the thread (and Piggy's real life) could benefit by having some additional orange apologists.Actually I had misunderstood the definition. i.e. I've been orange till here:
[...]If your position on leprechauns is "I can't affirm without reservation that they do not exist, but for all practical purposes we can behave as if they don't", then you fall into the green variety of skeptical methods.[...]
this and the following explanation made me greener (or murky brown maybe).
I thought that "probable as flying flapping my arms" was enough of an absolute to colour me orange...
see you on wednesday (looong week-end ahead!:cool: )

[Piggy]

Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, Piggy.

Actually, Athon, it's the 2nd sign of madness.

The first sign of madness is believing that there's a chance that China may be a hoax and that there may one day be evidence that leprechauns are real, and insisting that anyone who disagrees with you is behaving irrationally. :D

[Piggy]

Well if the flame could burn a finger it would hardly be undetectable.
You asked. I'm just citing Dr. Sagan's example.

[Piggy]

Well, folks, it's time to dive back into the bag o' posts.

But before I do, let's take stock of the current situation.

Right now I'm underwhelmed -- and alternately amused and mystified -- by the green position.

The dogmatic adherence to the certainty of uncertainty is rather baffling.

Here we have a group of apparently intelligent, educated adults seriously insisting that it is reasonable to believe that there is some chance (any chance) that leprechauns may exist, that the Holocaust may never have happened, that China might be a giant conspiracy, that the moon landings were faked, that my stepfather saw an invisible dog, that undetectable dragons could be hanging out in garages, or that Kim Jong Il shot 11 holes in one during his first round of golf.

Furthermore, they insist that it is inherently irrational to believe otherwise, that calling b******t on all that is somehow akin to an act of faith, like belief in a god.

Their adherence to pure logic and science is absolute. When a man claims to have seen a dog that no one else can see in a secured area in broad daylight, and it is mentioned that this man suffered from hallucinosis, they shout "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Thou shalt not investigate the claimant! Thou shalt not look into circumstance, motive, or history! Thou shalt not assess the full ramifications of the claim!"

Why not?

Because it is not pure logic and science.

Because if you go jumping to rash conclusions like "Leprechauns don't exist, therefore there will never be any evidence of them" you might dismiss out of hand other theories such as heliocentrism, relativity, and quantum mechanics. Nevermind that no scientific theory has ever passed through a stage of development resembling any of the examples proposed to be false.

And round and round we go.

So, jumping back on the carousel with all the pretty horses....

[Piggy]

If nothing else, you have faith that your methodology is infallible.
Let's put it this way....

If we can never get to "False" by any means (which seems to be the point of the "evil demon", "matrix", and "brain in a vat" speculations) then everything's moot, including science, and all bets are off.

So for this discussion to be meaningful, we must accept "false" to mean whatever it means when we have scientific or logical proof -- that is, a "false" that assumes we're not, for example, in some dreamland where the rules change moment to moment but we instantly forget that they were ever different from what they are now.

In other words, for any of this to matter, we must accept that infallible conclusions are possible. For instance, we can state infallibly that dogs did not evolve from Neanderthals. (If you don't accept that, then we're so far apart that we'll never agree on any of this.)

The question, then, concerns only the methods which may be used to reach infallible conclusions.

To say that a method may be used to reach an infallible conclusion is not to say that all conclusions reached by this method will be infallible, or that infallible conclusions may be reached by this method alone. It may be that infallible conclusions may only be reached in certain types of cases and in conjunction with other methods.

Furthermore, it is not to say that anyone claiming to use the method will use it properly. Creationists often cite plenty of valid science in their arguments. But they use tricks such as citing only what seems to support their position, citing valid refutations of evolutionary claims that are not actually central to the modern synthesis, and so forth.

So no, I do not have any faith that orange methods will always reach infallible conclusions -- which would indeed be faith.

My assertion is only that orange methods are useful and rational, and that in some cases they can be a rational means of determining that residual doubt from scientific investigation is an artifact of the model and not a feature of reality.

[Piggy]

It's not up to me to prove it false, it's up to them to prove it true. If they can't do that, there is no reason to believe the claim. End of story.
I see. So there's no reason for me to believe the claim that science and logic are the only valid means of falsifying a claim?

[Piggy]

You seem hell bent on removing any and all doubt from some claims because you believe any possibility gives the claim credence. <snip> That it can't be proved false does not support the argument "it's true" at all.
There is an important difference between asserting that the inability to disprove a claim does not make it true (which is true) and asserting that not falsifying a claim "does not support the argument... at all" (which is not true).

The key phrase here is "at all" (your phrase).

In fact, the green position insists that lack of falsification makes a claim more likely to be true than if it were falsified, because only in the former case are we obliged to admit the possibility of new evidence for the claim. That obligation is a patent admission that unfalsified claims have a greater probability of being true (greater than zero) than falsified claims (zero).

In fact, in the case of Sagan's Dragon, the lack of falsifiability is the only "support" (again, your term) that the claim has. It is nonsensical to argue that the lack of falsifiability does not lend any support whatsoever to a claim.

[Piggy]

"Can't be true" pertains to the possibility of a particular claim being true and "isn't true" pertains to the claim itself. In the case of UDIGs, it need not be impossible ("can't be true") for me to dismiss the claim that there is one in my garage ("isn't true"). Up until this particular person mentioned UDIGs, I had never heard of them so, of course, I did not believe in them. He has presented no evidence besides his say-so, so my position hasn't changed. It's as if he didn't make the claim at all. Whether or not they can exist isn't at all pertinent, especially since it can't be proven that they can't exist.
Ok, then my assumptions were correct, I believe.

"Can't be true", the way you're using it, means that there are underlying impediments to the claim being true which make consideration of the claim under any circumstances nonsensical. E.g., if I claimed that I was older than my father, that "couldn't be true".

"Isn't true", the way you're using it, refers to the special circumstances of the claim alone. E.g., if I claimed that I was older than my brothers, that isn't true (I'm the youngest), but that doesn't mean it "couldn't be true".

I agree with that, but our difference in approach causes us to use these terms differently.

For example, from my point of view, if I say "I'm older than my brothers", that "can't be true", because both my brothers were born before I was. I don't tend to separate out the logical bits -- I tend to examine the claim in its full context. So for me, there's usually no difference between the two.

But now I better understand what you mean.

So that's all that was about. No biggie. In fact, I don't remember now the circumstances in which these terms came into play.

[Piggy]

Because some things can't be falsified. That's the way the world-as-is, is. Pretending that everything can be falsified is just, well, delusional.
If you think I'm claiming that "everything can be falsified" then you simply have not been reading my posts with any care at all.

[Piggy]

If we are indeed talking about levels of doubt so small that they are indistinguishable in the real world from no doubt at all, then my question to you is "Why in the world are you unable to get to absolute 'No'?"
Because as I am against others making claims for which they have no evidence, I must hold myself to the same standards. I cannot claim something is absolutely false unless I can provide the evidence supporting that claim.
Well, that's where the difference arises, doesn't it -- what we accept as evidence?

You recognize a brand of exclusionary legitimation of science that I do not share.

In my book, the non-scientific methods I've outlined are evidence. Therefore, I'm not making a claim of falsity without evidence.

But I put the question to you again: If you really believe that what remains are "levels of doubt so small that they are indistinguishable in the real world from no doubt at all", then what is stopping you, in the real world, not in theory, from declaring falsity?

It seems to me that your denial of falsity is akin to denying that a swimmer has actually finished a race because we cannot say that any particle in any molecule in his hand actually contacted any particle in any molecule of the timepad.

[Piggy]

It is enough for me to say the probability of a particular claim is so ridiculously low that it is safe to ignore it. I need not go any further and declare it impossible because then the burden is on me to show it is.
This is called having one's cake and eating it, too.

You get to say that a claim is not in any meaningfully way possible, on the one hand, and also that you don't have to demonstrate that it is false, on the other.

You get to declare it dead for all real-world purposes, yet bounce the burden back on the claimant to demonstrate that it's alive.

The problem, however, is that it doesn't work. And the reason it doesn't work is that there is the real-world repurcussion of having to be open to new evidence, which is incompatible with your allegation that you really are ignoring the possibility that the claim is true. And your dodges demonstrate this, when you are asked to produce 3 consistent statements regarding (1) the reality of the phenomenon, (2) the truth-status of the claim that the phenomenon is real, and (3) the obligation to be open to new evidence.

So far, you haven't been able to produce a set of statements like this. Instead, you have had to inject qualifiers or references to other parts of the triad into at least one of the statements in order to produce anything that's even grammatically complete, but which still does not fulfill the request.

[Greyman]

I've been lurking in this thread just seeing what develops, but I have to say I take exception to the strawman in post 192 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1590930&postcount=192). In any of the far fetched situations you give, I'd call b******t. If someone I have reason to believe is a fruitcake says "Hey, I have this piece of evidence that <Claim X> is not b******t." I'll look at it and evaluate it. If it has solid merit I'd say "Wow, you're right." and if it doesn't then I'd say "Nope, you're still a fruitcake." That is quite rational and involves no acceptance of the claim until the evidence presented has solid merit.

Were I to take the strict orange stance, I would say "You sir are a fruitcake and everything you say is a lie, that cannot possibly be evidence contrary to <Claim X> being b******t." If for once this person had actual evidence, I would now be on the side that had no evidence for their views.

-Greyman

[Piggy]

"Clearly leprechauns don't exist!" Of course that's clear and everyone here knows it.
"That scenario you offer that allows them to exist is so implausible it's stupid!"
Of course it is. That's the whole point, the claim is so unlikely that any scenario in which it is true would have to appear stupid.

Let me ask you this. If there were some horribly implausible claim from our perspective, that was also true, how would it be possible that the explanation for how it is true was not apparently stupid?
Good point. In fact, this is one of only 2 points so far which seriously threaten to derail the entire orange methodology.

However, for an orange skeptic to get to "false", it's not enough for all available explanations to appear stupid. I can't think of any explanation of frablons that doesn't sound stupid. But I'm not willing to say that the claim is false.

But what about this....

Suppose you and I are having a few pints at the local tavern in the year 1825, and our friend Angus comes in, obviously already drunk. We invite him over, buy him an ale, and he starts telling us about an idea he's had.

"You know what I think," he says. "You know how if I'm walking at 5 miles an hour going north on the main road, and you're walking at 5 miles an hour going south on the main road, and we come into one another's view, then we're approaching each other at 10 miles an hour."

"Yeah," you say. "So what?"

"I was thinking," says Angus. "It seems to me that when light's coming at us from the sun, it doesn't work that way. I believe, if I'm standing still, and I measure how fast that light's going, or if I'm rushing at it and I measure how fast it's going, I'll come up with the same number."

I admit, as an orange skeptic, if that scenario happened in 1825, I'd likely say on the spot that Angus was not only talking out his hat badge, but that he was wrong. It couldn't possibly be. Here was a drunken man who had no support for his ideas contradicting established paradigms of science.

So... here are the 3 vital questions....

1. Is a scenario like this plausible? Remember, orange skepticism is not inclined to trouble over issues that are purely imaginary. (My initial feeling is that such a scenario is not plausible, but I haven't thought about it much yet.)

2. If I really looked into it, would I still hold that we could move to "false" -- given that his statements were built on assumptions of science, not scientific data, given that no one had yet measured light? (My initial feeling on this point is that I would indeed side with the assumptions.)

3. If it is plausible and I don't yield on the issue of assumptions, does it place orange skepticism on any lesser footing than science? Is this any greater an error than science would make in falsifying a claim?

Perhaps. Thanks for the enlightenment. I'll have to ponder it.

[Piggy]

... it's time for supper.

I'll check back in before too long. And hopefully, I'll have considered Roboramma's point and decided whether the challenge effectively kills the validity of the method, or whether it may still be valid.

[Piggy]

Were I to take the strict orange stance, I would say "You sir are a fruitcake and everything you say is a lie, ....
This has never been proposed as the orange position. In fact, I made a point in an earlier post to point out that Roy had many beliefs that were true -- that he was at home, that his wife and stepson were with him, etc. Also, Roy's hallucinosis was not in itself sufficient evidence to falsify the claim -- the presence of witnesses, the fence, the time of day, his describing the dog and pointing to the exact spot where it allegedly sat... all that came into play as well.

These example are not strawmen. They are claims actually being made by the green camp. If they are strawmen, you'll have to take that up with the greens.

[.13.]

You asked. I'm just citing Dr. Sagan's example.

I was specifically talking about undetectable beings.

Also you left out the pertinent part of my post unanswered. I'll quote the whole thing here incase you wish to make a relevant comment:I think the question should be phrased as:
What well-established and thoroughly tested scientific laws would have been made nonsensical by the existence of undetectable beings?

That is analoguous with the dragon in my garage. Orange skeptic clinging on the doctrines would have said that there are no microbes and there never will be evidence to support the claim. Not being open to new evidence would make the orange skeptic look pretty foolish.

[.13.]

Their adherence to pure logic and science is absolute. When a man claims to have seen a dog that no one else can see in a secured area in broad daylight, and it is mentioned that this man suffered from hallucinosis, they shout "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Thou shalt not investigate the claimant! Thou shalt not look into circumstance, motive, or history! Thou shalt not assess the full ramifications of the claim!"

Strawman.

That is not the green position. That is your strawman version of it. Green position takes into account the possibility of hallucinations and adjusts the probabilities accordingly.

[.13.]

Fallacies I've identified in the orange toolkit:

-Argument from Probability

To positively dismiss this claim, we only have to consider what would have to be true if this claim were false versus what would have to be true if this claim were true. The sheer number of willing participants required, with no apparent motive, together with the implausibility of such a hoax never being broken by America's press, along with the scope and volume of necessary manufactured phony evidence reaching into so many facets of life from publishing to politics to business and beyond, make this claim not merely highly improbable but 100% impossible.

-Argument from Consequences
Analysis of the claim's ramifications,...

-Ad hominem

Has no proponents who are not considered extremely marginal in their belief, if not outright crazy

There might be more. I'll keep looking but if anyone notices any others please share.

Also in his posts Piggy has resorted to:

-Strawman
The dogmatic adherence to the certainty of uncertainty is rather baffling.

-Ridiculing the opponent [and a strawman]
Their adherence to pure logic and science is absolute. When a man claims to have seen a dog that no one else can see in a secured area in broad daylight, and it is mentioned that this man suffered from hallucinosis, they shout "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Thou shalt not investigate the claimant! Thou shalt not look into circumstance, motive, or history! Thou shalt not assess the full ramifications of the claim!"

Piggy, your position doesn't seem to be standing on firm foundation. It seems more and more likely that the orange methodology is a house of cards.

[Beth]

Piggy,

When someone with the "green" position states that you cannot be absolute sure but you can get close, it's essentially identical to your "orange" position which is claiming that you can be certain to a degree necessary to outright reject the claim.

I wish you were more receptive to mathematical arguments. To say that a probability goes asymptotically to zero (which is essentially what Sagan is saying) is saying that we can get as close to zero as we wish. If 0.00000001 isn't close enough to zero, we can go to 0.000000000001. If that isn't close enough, we can get even closer. At some point, it becomes realistic to call it probability zero.

It seems to me that your "orange" position says "It's zero, it's ridiculous to be concerned about a probability that small." The "Green" position is saying, "Okay, but it's still not zero." Both positions are correct and they are not in conflict.

[.13.]

It seems to me that your "orange" position says "It's zero, it's ridiculous to be concerned about a probability that small." The "Green" position is saying, "Okay, but it's still not zero." Both positions are correct and they are not in conflict.

The conflict is that the green position is open to evidence while the orange is not.

[Piggy]

Good morning. I'm still wrestling with Angus's Relativity, but in the meantime....

When someone with the "green" position states that you cannot be absolute sure but you can get close, it's essentially identical to your "orange" position which is claiming that you can be certain to a degree necessary to outright reject the claim.
Why the qualification "essentially"?

If it is identical, why not get to "false"?

If the degree of doubt is not meaningful in the real world, why turn around and insist it somehow is, by demanding an openness to new evidence?

There is no need, for example, to be open to new evidence that dogs descended from Neanderthals. If there were, then the claim could not be called absolutely false.

The green position wants something akin to heatless fire that can burn a finger.

When it comes to saying the claim can be rejected, the fire of doubt has no manifestation in the real world. When it comes to saying there's an obligation to be open to new evidence, the fire of doubt does have a manifestation in the real world.

Once again, the green position is forced into a logical inconsistency, which (in these admittedly extreme cases) forbids it from making consistent affirmations regarding (1) the existence of a phenomenon, (2) the claim that the phenomenon exists, and (3) the need to be open to new evidence.

If the margin of doubt has no real-world value, then it's possible to assert for claim X (e.g., "Dogs are descended from Neanderthals"):

1. X is not true.
2. The claim "X is true" is false.
3. There will never be any evidence demonstrating that X is true.

If 3 cannot be asserted, if there is any actual possibility that evidence demonstrating the truth of X may be produced, then statement 1 must be changed to something like "X is extremely unlikely" and statement 2 must be changed to something like "The claim 'X is true' has not been disproven".

[Piggy]

I wish you were more receptive to mathematical arguments. To say that a probability goes asymptotically to zero (which is essentially what Sagan is saying) is saying that we can get as close to zero as we wish. If 0.00000001 isn't close enough to zero, we can go to 0.000000000001. If that isn't close enough, we can get even closer. At some point, it becomes realistic to call it probability zero.

It seems to me that your "orange" position says "It's zero, it's ridiculous to be concerned about a probability that small." The "Green" position is saying, "Okay, but it's still not zero." Both positions are correct and they are not in conflict.
This is really getting to the nub of it.

What I'm asking is -- does this "not zero" value have any meaning in the real world? If it does not, why not move to "False"?

For example, suppose my doctor told me that her tests on my blood flow in a particular capillary show that I may have some blockage due to cholesterol in that capillary, but that if I do, it would be less than half the width of a cholesterol molecule.

Admittedly an impossible test, but for the sake of argument, let's say it could be done.

Would it be unreasonable, somehow a belief on faith, for me to conclude that no blockage exists? And would it be reasonable for my doctor to advise me that I should undergo further testing to determine whether this cholesterol blockage of less than half the width of a cholesterol molecule was real, or just an artifact of the test?

If the levels of doubt have no real-world value, then why in Odin's name can't you bring yourself to falsify the claim?

I understand why you can't say the math is zero, why you can't label it scientifically disproven, but that's not what I'm asking anyone to do.

[tsg]

This is called having one's cake and eating it, too.

You get to say that a claim is not in any meaningfully way possible, on the one hand, and also that you don't have to demonstrate that it is false, on the other.

You get to declare it dead for all real-world purposes, yet bounce the burden back on the claimant to demonstrate that it's alive.

Exactly. This is what burden of proof means. It is not up to me to prove it false, it is up to them to prove it true. When their claim is extraordinary and lacks any evidence, I get to dismiss it.

The problem, however, is that it doesn't work. And the reason it doesn't work is that there is the real-world repurcussion of having to be open to new evidence, which is incompatible with your allegation that you really are ignoring the possibility that the claim is true.

The possiblity that the claim is true is close enough to zero for me to ignore, and the evidence that I am required to be open to would have to be extraordinary for me to change my view. I do not believe the claim is true yet am willing to be proven wrong. How is this in conflict?

And your dodges demonstrate this, when you are asked to produce 3 consistent statements regarding (1) the reality of the phenomenon, (2) the truth-status of the claim that the phenomenon is real, and (3) the obligation to be open to new evidence.

So far, you haven't been able to produce a set of statements like this. Instead, you have had to inject qualifiers or references to other parts of the triad into at least one of the statements in order to produce anything that's even grammatically complete, but which still does not fulfill the request.

In which case we are arguing about what "no" means. It is your rule that I can't answer "no" unless I believe it can never be shown to be true, not mine.

[Piggy]

I was specifically talking about undetectable beings.

Also you left out the pertinent part of my post unanswered. I'll quote the whole thing here incase you wish to make a relevant comment:
I think the question should be phrased as:
What well-established and thoroughly tested scientific laws would have been made nonsensical by the existence of undetectable beings?

That is analoguous with the dragon in my garage. Orange skeptic clinging on the doctrines would have said that there are no microbes and there never will be evidence to support the claim. Not being open to new evidence would make the orange skeptic look pretty foolish

Oh, sorry. The chain of referents has gotten complicated. When I wrote that response, I was thinking about another discussion specifically about Sagan's Dragon. My fault.

What "doctrine" are you referring to?

An orange skeptic would have no justification, as I've said before, for rejecting string theory, frablons, dark matter, undetectable dimensions, hyperdimensional environments for our universe, the claim that my cousin has Jerry Garcia's stolen toilet at an undisclosed location in the midwest, etc. By the same token, I can't see any justification for declaring germ theory false before microbes could be observed.

The difference between germ theory (proposed before germs could be detected) and Sagan's Dragon is analogous to the difference between undetectable dimensions and leprechauns.

If a person claims that undetectable dimensions exist, and that they may be responsible for some physical phenomena, and that we will eventually develop tests that show they are real, I'm obliged to say, "Well, sounds like you're guessing here, but I can't say you're wrong."

Ditto for the claim of wee beasties way back when.

A claim for leprechauns, however, is an unsupported claim for magic on the basis of mere folklore. Magic has been so thoroughly debunked, and flies in the face of a consistent and astoundingly productive physical model of the universe, that to grant any credence at all to an unsupported claim which posits magical beings, and which offers no explanation which might stand in for these well-demonstrated physical theories of reality, is utterly absurd.

Ditto for Sagan's Dragon. The claim that these creatures exist in the world, yet are unamenable to any type of physical test, is not worth considering.

Where Sagan is wrong is in insisting that it is only sensible to hold out for more evidence. It is, in fact, sensible to declare that these things don't exist.

[Piggy]

I've skipped ahead, which I shouldn't do just yet. I do want to get to .13.'s points in 205 and 206, which are critical, but first things first....

Piggy, I've asked a number of times for you to explain how such a tool provides evidence that is on par with scientifically produced evidence.

First, I wouldn't say that non-scientific investigation is "on par with" scientific investigation -- in other words, I would not propose one as an alternative to the other.

The issue here is whether, in some cases, the 2 in combination can get to "False", without invoking faith to any degree, where neither alone can.

Also, the methods I've discussed aren't totally divorced from logic and science.

For example, when I affirm that the existence of China is not a hoax, and that there can be no doubt about this, and that it will never be demonstrated to have been a hoax, I'm using logic and science to some extent.

For it to be true that the existence of China is a hoax, the level of fraud would have to be so widespread as to be untenable in actuality. There would have to be an astonishing effort (for no apparent reason) involving fabrication of news, printing of bogus textbooks, false labeling of goods, hordes of impersonators posing as Chinese immigrants, etc etc etc.

This level of fraud, for a cause which has no discernable purpose, is not in any sense plausible. It is absurd, and does not need to be considered. But to reach that conclusion with absolute certainty, one must have a world-view grounded in logic and science, an understanding of the real physical constraints on such activities being performed in real time in geographic space, some familiarity with the current state of technology, and so forth.

Science, when performed properly, gets results. The non-scientific methods I propose -- when used properly -- also get results. Both methods are subject to GIGO, of course.

The reason these non-scientific methods are valid is that they do indeed tell us something about the real world. If you need to decide whether Kim Jong Il may be accurately reporting his golf score, investigating his past claims, his motives, and the history of golf, all results in generating information about the actual world which is directly relevant.

If you can't ever fully disengage from theory, then you're left with "highly unlikely, but not physically impossible." When the claim is framed in its full context, however, any shred of doubt remaining from the lack of mere physical impossibility is correctly seen as an artifact of the model, and we move to "False" with complete confidence.

[Piggy]

It is not up to me to prove it false, it is up to them to prove it true. When their claim is extraordinary and lacks any evidence, I get to dismiss it.
But this thread has never been about dismissing claims. It has always been about falsifying them.

The possiblity that the claim is true is close enough to zero for me to ignore, and the evidence that I am required to be open to would have to be extraordinary for me to change my view. I do not believe the claim is true yet am willing to be proven wrong. How is this in conflict?
The way you state it here, it is not. But the difference between you and me is that when you say "I do not believe the claim is true" in this particular case, you mean that you believe it is unlikely in the extreme; when I say "I do not believe the claim is true" in this particular case, I mean it is false.

And that has always been the issue. I affirm that the claim "Leprechauns exist" is false, not merely that I'm willing to dismiss it.

And the means by which I determine that it's false (not merely that it is extremely unlikely) are not irrational and involve no leap of faith no matter how small.

In which case we are arguing about what "no" means. It is your rule that I can't answer "no" unless I believe it can never be shown to be true, not mine.
It is not "my rule" -- it is, on the one hand, my stipulative definition (which I think I've been very clear about) of "No" as an unqualified no, a positive assertion of falsity, and on the other hand a matter of simple logic.

First, the stipulative definition: In order to keep it clear what we're talking about, when I talk of getting to "No", I'm talking about getting to an unqualified, that's the end of it, fuggedaboudit, "No", and not "No until I see more evidence".

That's the entire point of this thread.

I'm not saying it's nonsensical to dismiss the claim of leprechauns, or to live one's life assuming they aren't real. And I'm not attempting to restrict how anyone uses the term "No" or "I don't believe" in real life.

But for the purposes of this discussion, I want it to be clear that, when I refer to judgments of "No" and "False", what I'm referring to is an unqualified judgment of falsity. I mean "It ain't" with no ifs, ands, or buts.

Your declaration that you don't believe in leprechauns but you're not going to say that there could never be evidence to prove you wrong, is fine as far as it goes. But it dodges the entire point of this discussion, which is whether it is acceptable to move beyond that stance and all the way to "False" (stipulative definition provided above).

"I don't believe it's true" is one thing. "It's not true" is another.

It's perfectly acceptable to say, "I don't believe it's true, but I could be wrong". No problem there.

But that's not the scenario under consideration here.

Ok, I gotta get some lunch. I'll be back tonight if I get a chance, or tomorrow.

[.13.]

By the same token, I can't see any justification for declaring germ theory false before microbes could be observed.

The claim that these creatures [Sagan's Dragon] exist in the world, yet are unamenable to any type of physical test, is not worth considering.

What's the difference between two undetectable beings when there is no evidence for either?


Magic has been so thoroughly debunked, and flies in the face of a consistent and astoundingly productive physical model of the universe, that to grant any credence at all to an unsupported claim which posits magical beings, and which offers no explanation which might stand in for these well-demonstrated physical theories of reality, is utterly absurd.

Are you omniscient? Is science? Or could there be some undiscovered secrets left in the universe? Should we examine new evidence or adopt the orange dogma that there will never be such evidence?

[Beth]

This is really getting to the nub of it.

What I'm asking is -- does this "not zero" value have any meaning in the real world? If it does not, why not move to "False"?

I am probably the wrong person to ask that question. I'm currently working on a Ph.D. in statistics. At this point, close to the end of the last semester of my required course, I'm having serious doubts as to my ability to make it. This stuff is so abstract it makes my head hurt sometimes thinking about it. I feel like I'm pushing my cognitive capabilities to their limit and I'm not sure I'm going to pass these last few classes. Do you know what we spend a great deal of our time studying? It's null sets. Sets of measure zero. What happens to certain mathematical functions on sets of measure zero.

What difference does it make in the "real world". Thr "real physical world" you are talking about, the entire universe and everything in it can be concieved of as a set of measure zero given certain mathematical definitions. What difference does it make. I don't know! Neither do you! Nobody does. When you say it doesn't make any difference, you are making a tacit assumption about how things might behave on a set of measure zero and that tiny, epsilon goes to zero, assumption is what I term "faith".

Now, you don't have to accept my mathematical definitions. They may, or may not, accurately describe reality. The hope is to try and find some that do a good job of it on larger and larger sets of objects until the difference between your equations and the "real world" as you define it is less than epsilon.

But epsilon is defined as being greater than zero. It never actually gets to be equal to zero in many equations. So while it makes no difference to the orange skeptics, even the greens cannot banish it away any more than they can set epsilon to zero in some of the best equations we have to describe reality. That is why scientiests are, almost universally, green or purple, not orange.

I don't expect this argument to convince you, but I hope it's a good articulation of why there are so many "greens" on this forum.

BTW, great thread. Thanks.

[Piggy]

Just checking in on some other threads, but I thought it worthwhile to note this fine example of orange methods (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1588977&postcount=4) by Dr Adequate.

You can also see some excellent orange methodology on the Loose Change threads. For example, when one Looser continually insisted that everyone read a source he was fond of citing, it was pointed out that this source did not hold a degree in the most relevant field, had been repudiated by the structural engineers at his university as well as all the faculty of his own department, held views that contradicted recognized authorities who had investigated Ground Zero (which he had not), and had had each of his points refuted which had been raised by the CTist on that thread.

I particularly liked the phrasing of one JREF member, who said she could not see why an "open-minded" person would need to eat an apple to be sure it was rotten.

[Roboramma]

Just checking in on some other threads, but I thought it worthwhile to note this fine example of orange methods (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1588977&postcount=4) by Dr Adequate.
Hey Piggy, I'll stay out of this a little longer, but wanted to say, I read his post, and as usual with Dr. A. agreed with it completely. But I don't think it's an exclusively orange methodology he's using. I accept your "rhetorical context" as a type of evidence like any other type of evidence, I just think that like all forms of evidence it's still up for scientific analysis.

Again, I don't believe there was an Einstein Hoax. Given that there either was or their wasn't, that really does mean I believe that there wasn't.
But I don't know that with absolute certainty. Then again, I have plenty of reason to act as though I do.

Anyway, I'm just saying that both and orange and a green could have made that post. It's the conclusions we draw from it that differ.

I particularly liked the phrasing of one JREF member, who said she could not see why an "open-minded" person would need to eat an apple to be sure it was rotten.

I agree with that point to, but only for certain definitions of the word "sure". For most purposes, our definitions overlap. Only in the most rigorously defined circumstances will it be necessary for me to admit, "well, okay, it's possible that it's not rotten, if you want to be anal about it, but I don't see why you think that matters" - this statement should be considered to be made to a believer, by the by.)

Okay, I'll hold back a little longer now. Just had to get that in. :)

[JamesDillon]

Piggy,

I'm not sure whether you're caught up with the last wave of responses or are ready for more yet or not, but I have some thoughts to add at this point. I guess my first observation would be that, while we all agree that you've done a great job for the most part conducting this thread in a spirit of civil and open discussion, I think it's fair to say that some of your posts over the last couple of pages have become somewhat abusive, which I think is unwarranted. You're probably frustrated that no one here seems moved by your arguments. That's true, but it's not that we don't get it; we just think you're wrong. You're defending a level of certainty that you concede 1) is unattainable solely by scientific inquiry, and 2) rests explicitly on a logical (ad hominem) fallacy. Now is not the time to be attacking the views of others as "dogmatic" or "irrational." I let that go without comment in your last round of responses to me, but your commentary in post 192 was really over the line, in addition to setting up an absurd straw man in the green position, as Greyman pointed out. If the thread has reached a point at which you can't criticize the green position as it actually exists (and as you initially defined it), it might be time to concede defeat, or at least for all of us to walk away from this.

I noticed that you haven't responded to my post 173 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1586391&postcount=173), in which I asked you to elaborate on the distinction you perceive between the "real world" and the "abstract world." Maybe you just haven't gotten to it, but I can't help noticing that you're waving the phrase "real world" around like a banner in many of your responses here. As I've said before, I suspect this means that we believe basically the same thing, and that you're using the phrase "absolute certainty" to mean something like, "absolute certainty for practical purposes," which is something entirely different.

But I'd like to add a bit more about the prevalence of the "real world" in your viewpoint. Without knowing exactly what you're using it to mean I can't be sure, but this sounds a lot like the anti-intellectual nonsense propounded by illiterates desperate to believe that their opinion is just as valid as those who have studied a subject deeply, which pervades our popular culture. I am absolutely not suggesting that you are one of those people-- here and in other threads you've long since established your intellectual bona fides-- but it does seem as though you've bought into their propaganda. It seems to me that you're longing for the certainty that comes with superficiality.

Another comment: I think a good argument can be made that it's the orange position, rather than the green, that neglects the concerns of the "real world" in its methodology. You seem to be stuck on the fact that every intelligible empirical proposition has, in theory, a value of either True or False associated with it. This is true, but only an omniscient being can know the Truth or Falsity of an empirical proposition. In the "real world," we always deal in probabilities. The question "Is proposition X true?," is distinct from the question, "Do I have sufficient reason to believe that proposition X is true?" As I just said, if one were omniscient, the distinction between those questions would disappear, but sadly, due to the nature of our finite minds and the limitations on empirical observation, the only question we can ever answer is the second one; the first is always beyond our grasp. These limitations on our knowledge are "real world" concerns that the orange position, stuck as it is at the abstract level of pure theory, fails to recognize.

[Piggy]

I'm not sure whether you're caught up with the last wave of responses
No, I haven't, but I have no excuse b/c I've been whoring after other threads. I won't catch up tonight, either, but I want to answer .13.'s post, and decided to respond to this one, too, b/c I haven't gotten to your "real world" post and think it needs an answer.

I think it's fair to say that some of your posts over the last couple of pages have become somewhat abusive, which I think is unwarranted. You're probably frustrated that no one here seems moved by your arguments.
The "Man behind the curtain" post and the "Dr. Green" post should both have been enclosed in <RANT> tags. More on that in a mo. I'm not frustrated that greens aren't swayed by my arguments. I'm merely amazed at some of the truly bizarre thoughts coming from that camp.


You're defending a level of certainty that you concede 1) is unattainable solely by scientific inquiry, and 2) rests explicitly on a logical (ad hominem) fallacy.
(1) is true. (2) is not. It is the green camp -- or some among them -- who are dogmatically pointing at any attempt to investigate the claimant and declaring it invalid because it's ad hominem. This seems utterly absurd to me. I haven't yet seen it justified beyond mere assertions that it is "ad hominem" or that claims "should" only be weighed on the merits of the claim's contents per se, or conflations of evidence with sufficient evidence.

In fact, we see orange methods on stage in this week's commentary about debunking claims of reincarnation in India. These are totally vaild tools in the skeptical toolbag. Where we differ is whether we're willing to accept that they can take us, in any case at all, that final angstrom to "False".


Now is not the time to be attacking the views of others as "dogmatic" or "irrational." I let that go without comment in your last round of responses to me, but your commentary in post 192 was really over the line, in addition to setting up an absurd straw man in the green position, as Greyman pointed out. If the thread has reached a point at which you can't criticize the green position as it actually exists (and as you initially defined it), it might be time to concede defeat, or at least for all of us to walk away from this.
Post 192 was indeed hyperbole. Feel free to ignore it. It contributes nothing to this thread.

But the green position has certainly turned out to be dogmatic.

I noticed that you haven't responded to my post 173, in which I asked you to elaborate on the distinction you perceive between the "real world" and the "abstract world."
I can't help you here. If you don't understand the difference, what can I tell you?

And I'm not kidding around. If you don't know the difference between waking up, putting on the coffee, tripping over the toy in the hallway, and getting stuck in traffic on the one hand... and making logical or mathematical models on the other... then your head is in a very different space from mine. If you don't perceive a difference between reality and thought, I cannot imagine your experience, and cannot speak to it.

I can't help noticing that you're waving the phrase "real world" around like a banner in many of your responses here. As I've said before, I suspect this means that we believe basically the same thing, and that you're using the phrase "absolute certainty" to mean something like, "absolute certainty for practical purposes," which is something entirely different.
No. I've been very clear about this. When I say "absolute certainty" I mean "absolute certainty". And I've been forced to wave my position around like a banner because I keep getting comments like this anyway.

I am absolutely certain that I am not older than my father, that dogs did not descend from Neanderthals, that Kim Jong Il did not shoot 11 holes-in-one on his first round of golf, that the dog my stepdad claimed to see was a hallucination, that leprechauns don't exist, that the Holocaust happened, that there are no invisible dragons in anyone's garage, that atomic carbon dioxide is bunk, and that China is real.

I don't think I've made any bones about this. Do you see now why I get frustrated at some of the responses?


But I'd like to add a bit more about the prevalence of the "real world" in your viewpoint. Without knowing exactly what you're using it to mean I can't be sure, but this sounds a lot like the anti-intellectual nonsense propounded by illiterates desperate to believe that their opinion is just as valid as those who have studied a subject deeply, which pervades our popular culture. I am absolutely not suggesting that you are one of those people-- here and in other threads you've long since established your intellectual bona fides-- but it does seem as though you've bought into their propaganda. It seems to me that you're longing for the certainty that comes with superficiality.
Well, you're going to have to explain what you mean by that, b/c you lost me.


You seem to be stuck on the fact that every intelligible empirical proposition has, in theory, a value of either True or False associated with it. This is true, but only an omniscient being can know the Truth or Falsity of an empirical proposition. In the "real world," we always deal in probabilities.
That's baloney. Dogs aren't descended from Neanderthals. There's no probability to deal with. This is the dogmatism I'm talking about. I've only cited a few extreme cases where non-scientific methods can be a means to determine that an admittedly nanoscopic level of doubt must be an artifact of the scientific/logical model. Yet you're insisting that there is "always" doubt.

You're falling into the trap of positing the impossibility of absolute knowledge as absolute knowledge, as described by McGath in post 3.


The question "Is proposition X true?," is distinct from the question, "Do I have sufficient reason to believe that proposition X is true?" As I just said, if one were omniscient, the distinction between those questions would disappear, but sadly, due to the nature of our finite minds and the limitations on empirical observation, the only question we can ever answer is the second one; the first is always beyond our grasp. These limitations on our knowledge are "real world" concerns that the orange position, stuck as it is at the abstract level of pure theory, fails to recognize.
Hold the phone. You're accusing me of being "stuck... at the abstract level of pure theory"? While you're the one insisting that we can't know anything for sure because your abstract models contain fractional levels of doubt.

This is just too bizarre.

[Piggy]

Strawman.

That is not the green position. That is your strawman version of it. Green position takes into account the possibility of hallucinations and adjusts the probabilities accordingly.
You're right. That was hyperbole. Should've been in <rant> tags.

However, there seems to be some differences of opinion. I've had "nevers" tossed my way.

But agreed, that was just melodrama.

Sorry.

[Piggy]

Fallacies I've identified in the orange toolkit:

-Argument from Probability
To positively dismiss this claim, we only have to consider what would have to be true if this claim were false versus what would have to be true if this claim were true. The sheer number of willing participants required, with no apparent motive, together with the implausibility of such a hoax never being broken by America's press, along with the scope and volume of necessary manufactured phony evidence reaching into so many facets of life from publishing to politics to business and beyond, make this claim not merely highly improbable but 100% impossible.
Label it a fallacy if you want. Slap that tag on it and pay it no mind anymore.

But the truth is, perpetuating a hoax like this is not physically possible *and* there is no conceivable motive for it.

It's false.

If you want to believe there's some realistic level of doubt, you're free to believe that. If you want to let the limitations of your approved methods of inquiry force you into holding the position that there's a chance that China could be a hoax, that's your right.

But I see a problem with that. All one has to do is consider the effort that would be necessary to create and sustain such a hoax, and it is immediately apparent that it is not humanly possible to pull it off.

And I don't need some leap of faith to get me to that conclusion.

[Piggy]

-Argument from Consequences

Analysis of the claim's ramifications,...
If you wish to eliminate the examination of the ramifications of a claim from your toolkit, well ok.

I see no reason to. And the label doesn't provide one.

[Piggy]

-Ad hominem
Has no proponents who are not considered extremely marginal in their belief, if not outright crazy
Again, you are free to choose, when you evaluate claims, to ignore the claimant. If you believe, as Athon does, that anything short of the physically impossible gets a seat at the table, that's your method of inquiry and you're welcome to its limitations.

But when it's relevant, I'm going to consider the claimant (as in the Down East Eddie example).

When determining whether the claim "Leprechauns exist" is true, false, or undetermined, it seems absurd to me, under the circumstances, not to consider the extreme marginality of the claimants.

In other circumstances (e.g., if magic were not involved, or some support were offered) the claimant may be of no consequence. In this case, the observation is clearly relevant.

[Piggy]

Also in his posts Piggy has resorted to:

-Strawman

The dogmatic adherence to the certainty of uncertainty is rather baffling.
I'll take exception there. Athon and JamesDillon, for example, do indeed dogmatically adhere to the certainty of uncertainty. That view may not be held by everyone who agrees with Sagan's position, but I stand by my statement that the dogmatic adherence to the certainty of uncertainty is baffling to me.

[Piggy]

-Ridiculing the opponent [and a strawman]

Their adherence to pure logic and science is absolute. When a man claims to have seen a dog that no one else can see in a secured area in broad daylight, and it is mentioned that this man suffered from hallucinosis, they shout "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Thou shalt not investigate the claimant! Thou shalt not look into circumstance, motive, or history! Thou shalt not assess the full ramifications of the claim!"
While there are certainly some absolutists posting here, this was clearly a rant and I'm guilty here of ridiculing the opponent. This screed did nothing to further the discussion. Sorry about that.

[Piggy]

I have to take out the trash and get to bed, but there are a couple of points that bear repeating.

1. I do not hold with the philosophy which claims there must always be doubt, that we cannot know anything without doubt. So appeals to this assertion have no merit, as far as I'm concerned.

A couple of posters here have lobbed back equivalents of "we can't know everything". But we don't need to know everything to know something.

I don't know if I was actually born where my birth certificate, and my family, says I was born. It's highly unlikely that I wasn't, but I can't say for 100% sure that I was.

But I do know I wasn't born before my father was born. I know enough about the world to know that. I do know that there's not a stairway to Jupiter. I do know that The Grand Canyon Suite was not composed by a monkey with a paintbrush.


2. One cannot rationally claim both that (a) the chance that leprechauns exist is so small that it's the same as no chance at all, and (b) we cannot eliminate the possibility that evidence for leprechauns may be produced.

This is the heatless fire that burns a finger.

When convenient, the level of doubt is heatless, it is not different from no doubt at all -- one is able to say "Leprechauns don't exist".

When convenient, the level of doubt becomes manifest in an obligation to recognize the possibility that evidence may someday be produced.

If we admit the chance of new evidence, then we admit that the likelihood of the reality of the phenomenon is not effectively equal to zero for all intents and purposes. If it were, we could deny the possibility of new evidence as we do in the case of the claim "I am older than my father".

And that is why the world of Sagan's Dragon is not the same as the world where dragons do not exist.

[Piggy]

What's the difference between two undetectable beings when there is no evidence for either?
In this case, magic, for one.

[Piggy]

Are you omniscient? Is science? Or could there be some undiscovered secrets left in the universe? Should we examine new evidence or adopt the orange dogma that there will never be such evidence?
It's not a matter of dogma. It's a matter of logic.

If a claim is false, there cannot be new evidence ever to examine.

There will never be evidence that World War I was caused by Jerry Garcia. There will never be evidence that I am female. There will never be evidence that Maya Angelou wrote the works of JRR Tolkien.

If leprechauns don't exist, it is unreasonable to expect that evidence will be produced showing that they do.

If it is merely extremely unlikely that leprechauns exist, then it is reasonable to accept the possibility that evidence may someday appear.

This business of countering with "We don't know everything" is a red herring.

I had a co-worker use that one on me recently, in support of her belief in the extra-sensory powers of pet psychics. They could really be psychic, she said ... there are some things we just don't know.

Yes, there's lots we don't know. But we know enough to conclude that leprechauns are purely mythological.

You may believe that your mathematical doubt reflects something actual. When I look at the claim in context, I conclude that there can be no real doubt. Given that, it would be irrational of me to also claim that evidence of leprechauns may one day appear.

[Piggy]

Now, you don't have to accept my mathematical definitions.
I don't even understand them. Sorry, I'm a math idiot. I dropped out of high school trig, and the only other math I ever took was behavioral statistics for my psych minor as an undergrad, and that's a couple decades in the rear-view now.

Maybe you could apply this math to one of these cases, and demonstrate how it is relevant. That would help.

[athon]

Sorry I haven't responded to a lot else recently; I've had too much assignment and article writing to do.

But I thought I'd be selective and comment on these.

But I do know I wasn't born before my father was born. I know enough about the world to know that. I do know that there's not a stairway to Jupiter. I do know that The Grand Canyon Suite was not composed by a monkey with a paintbrush.

These are all things that would require the foundations of science as we know it to be wrong. Hence, we're not so much as asking whether these three absurdities are correct, but whether there is a chance that even fundamental knowledge determined by science could be incorrect. We could call this 'The Matrix' possibility.

In this possibility, all things are equally possible on account of it being a computer similuation where rules can be changed at any time by the programmer. Is there a chance that we exist in a reality undescribable by science? Indeed; just because there seems to be consistent laws does not mean they will remain consistent forever.
However, consistency is an assumption we make based on the fact we have no reason to suppose otherwise (links in with parsimony here). Inductive reasoning is flawed in this way.

The moment we are given reason to believe we are wrong, science will be void. I don't see it happening, however that does not make the possibility '0'.

Therefore, any situation proposed which would require science to be incorrect simply has be compared with the possibility that science could be based on a false assumption. We have no reason to think it would be, however with inductive reasoning altimately being the reason why, the possibility is not equal to 'zero'.

2. One cannot rationally claim both that (a) the chance that leprechauns exist is so small that it's the same as no chance at all, and (b) we cannot eliminate the possibility that evidence for leprechauns may be produced.

Why can't we? Practically we can say (a), theoretically we say (b). It's theoretically possible for me to be catapaulted to the shops, but I don't do it for a variety of reasons. Hence is somebody asks 'can we catapault you to the store' I'll say 'no'.

We don't practically entertain the theory of leprachauns existing because there's no good reason to consider it over other theories explaining the myth. It's a waste of time and resources, especially considering the fact that evidence presented would need to be so extraordinary that it would overturn the evidence against such a thing. However, you cannot turn away from the evidence should it ever be presented.

When convenient, the level of doubt is heatless, it is not different from no doubt at all -- one is able to say "Leprechauns don't exist".

Maybe it's your maths illiteracy that's getting in the way of this.

If something has a 1 in a billion chance of being accurate, it's so close to being wrong you practically dismiss it. You don't worry about considering it, effectively equating it with 'wrong'. However, in a billion situations of that nature, once it will be right. Hence, while you might dismiss it as a possibility, it is not equal to absolutely 'wrong'.

Insert any huge number into this, and it still works.

If we admit the chance of new evidence, then we admit that the likelihood of the reality of the phenomenon is not effectively equal to zero for all intents and purposes. If it were, we could deny the possibility of new evidence as we do in the case of the claim "I am older than my father".

And that is why the world of Sagan's Dragon is not the same as the world where dragons do not exist.

This is true, though. Is it a refutation or a restating of the green position?

Athon

[.13.]

But the truth is, perpetuating a hoax like this is not physically possible *and* there is no conceivable motive for it.


What laws of nature would the hoax break?

Also there is an argument from ignorance. (If you are saing there is no motive because you can't conceive one.)

If you want to believe there's some realistic level of doubt, you're free to believe that. If you want to let the limitations of your approved methods of inquiry force you into holding the position that there's a chance that China could be a hoax, that's your right.

Your choice of words is a bit misleading. Saying "realistic level of doubt" could be taken to imply I'm undecided or the chance of the hoax being true is significant. But the only level of doubt I have is that if someone brings forth convincing evidence then I'll change my mind about the hoax.

[.13.]

In this case, magic, for one.

What makes the other a less magical being from the perspective of a person living 600 years ago?

[.13.]

It's not a matter of dogma. It's a matter of logic.


[This is also in response to your posts #222 #223 and #224]

This is the main issue. You claim it is a matter of logic but you admittedly engage in logical fallacies. You break down the logic in order to falsify a claim and you say I should ignore that if I want and you'll continue doing that.

But I won't. The orange type of skepticism has certain dogmas that has been arrived to by breaking down logic. When a claim is unfalsfiable green method makes an educated guess of how impropable the claim is and considers it false if it is sufficiently impropable but remains open to new evidence. Whereas orange methodology in case of an unfalsifiable claim resorts to fallacies inorder to say the claim has been falsified and is closed to new evidence. In that regard orange methodology is not skeptical of itself but the green is.

You can't have it both ways. Using logic when it suits you and using fallacies when it doesn't. Also you would have to allow the use of fallacies to anyone else debating you. Unless you are a hypocrite.

I for one value logic in a discussion.

[JamesDillon]

I'll take exception there. Athon and JamesDillon, for example, do indeed dogmatically adhere to the certainty of uncertainty. That view may not be held by everyone who agrees with Sagan's position, but I stand by my statement that the dogmatic adherence to the certainty of uncertainty is baffling to me.

Sorry, Piggy, but there is simply nothing "dogmatic" in my rejecting your fallacious efforts to undermine a well-considered position that is the product of many centuries of careful thought by some of the greatest minds in recent history. The fact that I have given a great amount of thought to this issue for several years, and have come to accept the certainty[1] of the fact that all of our empirical or inductive beliefs are, by the very nature of empirical investigation, subject to an inescapable level of doubt as to their accuracy is not mere adherence to orthodoxy. My dismissal of your suggestion that we can transcend that inescapable doubt by reference to logical fallacies and irrelevancies is not dogmatic; it is simply the recognition of a bad argument.

[1] As I have already explained here (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1582540&postcount=66) in my rebuttal to your criticism of Sagan's Dragon, there is nothing contradictory in this "certainty of uncertainty," because the former stems from the deductive conceptual analysis of the latter. I.e., the uncertainty of empirical conclusions is an inherent facet of the nature of the methodology of empirical investigation itself.

[JamesDillon]

(1) is true. (2) is not. It is the green camp -- or some among them -- who are dogmatically pointing at any attempt to investigate the claimant and declaring it invalid because it's ad hominem. This seems utterly absurd to me. I haven't yet seen it justified beyond mere assertions that it is "ad hominem" or that claims "should" only be weighed on the merits of the claim's contents per se, or conflations of evidence with sufficient evidence.

I didn't realize there was disagreement about that, since early on in this thread you said:
Second point: Yes, I know it's ad hominem. I freely admit that. Ad hominem arguments are not disallowed (though they are not necessarily allowed, depending on the argument) when evaluating a claim's context.
You seem to have been suggesting at various points that ad hominem is not really a fallacy, but I can't see that you have, or how you could, carry the burden of proof on that one. It seems self-evident to me, but let's try to hash this out: The truth or falsity of a proposition is entirely independent of the identity of the person stating it. Using the example of Kim Jong Il's golf game, the proposition "Kim Jong Il scored 11 holes in one the first time he played golf" is either true or false completely independently of anything we may know about Mr. Il. To illustrate: would the truth value of the above proposition be affected in any way if James Randi, rather than Kim Jong Il, stated, "Kim Jong Il scored 11 holes in one the first time he played golf"? I suspect you'll agree that it would not, and that is precisely why the ad hominem argument is a logically invalid fallacy.

However, you are right that reference to facts about the speaker may be relevant in evaluating the veracity of a claim, but in a sense that actually supports the green position. If we're calculating the probability that a particular claim is true, i.e., whether we have sufficient evidence to provisionally subscribe to a belief in it, which as I said yesterday is an entirely different question than whether the claim is True, then of course the credibility of the claimant becomes relevant. As I've said several times previously, we might rationally believe a somewhat implausible claim made by someone whose credibility has been established in the past more readily than an implausible claim made by a person with a history of making unsubstantiated extraordinary claims. In that sense, the fact that Kim Jong Il rather than James Randi is making the claim gives us a good reason to assign it a lower probability of truth than we would otherwise. But, for reasons that just seem obvious to me and that I don't think I can articulate any more clearly, the increased or decreased probability that we may rationally assign to a proposition on the basis of facts about the person making it can never go so far as to bridge the gap between scientific uncertainty and the ultimate Truth or Falsity of the claim in question.

In fact, we see orange methods on stage in this week's commentary about debunking claims of reincarnation in India. These are totally vaild tools in the skeptical toolbag.
Agreed. I see nothing in the article about reincarnation in India that a green skeptic could not wholeheartedly endorse.
Where we differ is whether we're willing to accept that they can take us, in any case at all, that final angstrom to "False".
Quite so. On the basis of the commentary, and without knowing any more facts about the case, I would say that we have established that the probability that this boy has experienced any sort of paranormal phenomenon, as opposed to having been merely coached by his father to say so, is so low that we may safely act with practical certainty that it is false. But, of course, we could be wrong. It's just very unlikely that we are.

But the green position has certainly turned out to be dogmatic.
So you keep saying, as if repetition of the word "dogmatic" makes it so. Consistent rejection of your unpersuasive arguments in favor of an untenable position is not dogma.

And I'm not kidding around. If you don't know the difference between waking up, putting on the coffee, tripping over the toy in the hallway, and getting stuck in traffic on the one hand... and making logical or mathematical models on the other... then your head is in a very different space from mine. If you don't perceive a difference between reality and thought, I cannot imagine your experience, and cannot speak to it.
Mathematical models are a part of the world in which I live, and in fact, they frequently represent reality better than our everyday perceptions. This is why statistical evidence is more reliable than anecdotal. If you really don't understand that, I suppose we have reached a point at which we can go no further.

No. I've been very clear about this. When I say "absolute certainty" I mean "absolute certainty". And I've been forced to wave my position around like a banner because I keep getting comments like this anyway.
Then why all the emphasis on "real world" concerns? You seem to have admitted that merely "mathematical" doubt persists, but on the other hand you insist that you are justified not only in ignoring it for practical purposes, but somehow in waving it away entirely. This seems more like a contradiction to me than anything in the green position.

I am absolutely certain that I am not older than my father,
Of course you are; priority in time is inherent in the definition of the word "father," so through deductive reasoning we may conclude with absolute certainty that you are not older than your father. Otherwise, he wouldn't be your father.
that dogs did not descend from Neanderthals, that Kim Jong Il did not shoot 11 holes-in-one on his first round of golf, that the dog my stepdad claimed to see was a hallucination, that leprechauns don't exist, that the Holocaust happened, that there are no invisible dragons in anyone's garage, that atomic carbon dioxide is bunk, and that China is real.
So you say, but I've yet to see any reasonable methodology for arriving at a state of absolute certainty as to any of these empirical conclusions.

That's baloney. Dogs aren't descended from Neanderthals. There's no probability to deal with. This is the dogmatism I'm talking about. I've only cited a few extreme cases where non-scientific methods can be a means to determine that an admittedly nanoscopic level of doubt must be an artifact of the scientific/logical model. Yet you're insisting that there is "always" doubt.
I am indeed insisting that there is always doubt, because empirical observation and inductive reasoning are, by their nature, incapable of producing anything more than probabilistic knowledge. The fact that our probabilistic beliefs may well be True does not mean that we can be certain of them.

You're falling into the trap of positing the impossibility of absolute knowledge as absolute knowledge, as described by McGath in post 3.
As I explained in post 66, McGath is simply wrong, because he confuses a priori with a posteriori knowledge. A priori deductive reasoning, the analysis of abstract concepts, can give rise to certainty. Inductive reasoning cannot. Thus there is no contradiction in the statement, "I am certain that all of our beliefs based on empirical observation and inductive reasoning are always subject to some lingering uncertainty, however small."

Hold the phone. You're accusing me of being "stuck... at the abstract level of pure theory"? While you're the one insisting that we can't know anything for sure because your abstract models contain fractional levels of doubt.

This is just too bizarre.
Do you have a response to my argument that the orange position, in its preoccupation with the theoretical Truth or Falsity of all empirical propositions, overlooks the important real-world limitations on human knowledge, other than that it is "bizarre"?

[JamesDillon]

Oops, double post.

[Jimbo07]

Of course you are; priority in time is inherent in the definition of the word "father," so through deductive reasoning we may conclude with absolute certainty that you are not older than your father. Otherwise, he wouldn't be your father.


Something about this has been niggling at me...

First, Piggy hasn't responded to my idea about rejecting any sort of 'argument from real-worldidness,' although JD has been taking a similar tack at some points.

So I'm going to adopt 'the real world' for greens:

i) Is it fair to say that those things we can be reasonably certain about tend to be subsets of real-world problems? Humans can define things like alphabets, words and logic puzzles, all with single solutions. Other humans can then be reasonably certain that when they solve a human-defined logic puzzle that their solution is the same as the puzzlemaker's. As well, we can say that we are younger than our parents... by definition.


Maybe you could apply this math to one of these cases, and demonstrate how it is relevant. That would help.


ii) Here's a weird 'mathy' cross-over between real-worldidness and what some may imagine is 'theory,' but that clearly shows green, that doesn't go far beyond trig...

...

[lengthy example]
Trig folks will know that the sine (SIN) of an angle is defined as the angle's opposite side divided by the described triangle's hypoteneuse. Thus, in a 45-45-90 triangle, the SIN(45)=1/sqrt(2), because sides: 1 squared + 1 squared = 2, giving a sqrt(2) hypoteneuse. What is the value of 1/sqrt(2)? It is approximately 0.707106781... That's cool.

What do I mean, approximately, and who cares? Well, SIN is used all the time in real-world problems such as construction, astronomy and ship navigation. If I'm navigating past a lighthouse that is 3 miles away on radar, and it bears 45 degrees, I can use the triangle to know that I will pass it at 3 miles. What if it bears 1 degree at 1 nautical mile (:eek: )? SIN(1) is approximately 0.017452. Multiply that by 2000 yards (/nm) to get approximately 34.9 yards (WAY too close, btw :eye-poppi ). Being conservative translates into a rule-of-thumb for navigators... for small angles, 1 degree at 1 mile equals 33 yards. You would report to the captain, with certainty, that the closest point of something at 2 degrees at 1 mile will be 66 yards away. This real-world certainty is in fact incorrect, it just works for navigation.

Going further into calculus classes, one finds that SIN(x) can be represented by a 'series expansion' that looks sort of like

sin(x) = 0 + x + -x^3/3! + x^5/5! ...

Here, we express 1 degree in radians (pi/180) is approximately 0.01745329. Plugging in:

sin(0.01745329) gives 0.01745329 - (0....)^3/3! etc. Grab a calculator, work in radians and see how many terms you have to get to to make this value approximately equal to the first approximation I gave. What level of precision do you want to use? Mathematicians can then go on to show (for however many terms they've decided to use) what the error contained in the remaining terms would be bounded by.

For angles smaller than 1 degree this really starts to get important, because the values are close to begin with (often, we're validated in using the small-angle approximation). The certainty in the 33 yard 'real-world' example is useful, but incorrect or untrue. The value for sin on your calculator is incorrect, or untrue, but the manufacturers can know the degree to which the value is in error (they also use tables, but that's a different story). For most of us, stopping at just a couple of decimal places is fine... but it's not real.

[/lengthy example]
...


And now, for mathematicians, navigators, engineers, scientists, etc. I apologize for any mistakes I have made in the above...

I just wanted to get in on the 'examples' flying around. :D

[Piggy]

Piggy hasn't responded to my idea about rejecting any sort of 'argument from real-worldidness,' although JD has been taking a similar tack at some points.
Hi, Jimbo. I must've gotten your posts and JD's confused -- thought I'd gone back and fetched that one. Sorry.

Just sneaking a peek before coming off of lunch. I'll respond to some points in these posts this evening, (God = willing) + (creek != risen).

I also hope to have time to post a summary of the non-trivial objections to orange posted on this thread so far, then summarize my position on them one by one.

[Hellbound]

Hmm.

Piggy, let me ask you if the following is a valid summarization of the orange position:

"Any unfalsifiable claim which has no supporting evidence is false."

Actually, I think I can agree with that. It doesn't apply to claims that are falsifiable (until the point that they are tested), but only to those that are inheritly unfalsifiable and have no supporting evidence (which means there was no valid logical or scientific reason to propose the claim in the first place, pragmatically the truth or falsity of the claim makes no difference, and post hoc rationalization is used to rebut counter-evidence, instead of any actual evidence or experiment).

That about right?

[Jimbo07]

I also hope to have time to post a summary of the non-trivial objections to orange posted on this thread so far, then summarize my position on them one by one.

Then ignore most of mine :D . I'm largely letting others carry the argument and often just interjecting my own curiosities or sidebars.

The only general item I'm interested in right now (and JD has picked it up anyway), is on the utility of appealing to the 'real-world.'

BTW, one service that has been done is getting a discussion going around green vs. orange vs. purple skepticism. It is turning out to be a handy label, although the boundaries still seem a little blurry. Greens and oranges are fairly well sorted, tho some debate seems to exist over their take on purple. What I might suggest is that by allowing a colorful spectrum of skeptics you have defeated de-Bunk's original rant that certain people had no right to consider themselves skeptics.

[Piggy]

At this point, I'm not sure if it is accurate to use "orange" in the plural. ;)

[Jimbo07]

I keep getting reminded of an old board game called 'Samurai Swords,' which itself was based on an older game named 'Shogun,' which suffered some copyright issues I think.

Anyway, it had all these little green, orange and purple playing pieces. For some reason, the purple player tended to lose :confused:

Any room for red and blue skeptics, too? Or a black ninja skeptic?

:D

[.13.]

"Any unfalsifiable claim which has no supporting evidence is false."

Actually, I think I can agree with that.
...

That would be argument from ignorance.

[Piggy]

"Any unfalsifiable claim which has no supporting evidence is false."

Actually, I think I can agree with that.That would be argument from ignorance.
Agreed, .13.. This is not a legitimate orange stance. (See flabtrons.)

[Piggy]

Jimbo07, I tried responding to your last post, but when I got right down to it, I couldn't follow it, so I went back to the earlier post. Turned out, I couldn't follow that one, either.

So maybe this will help you and JamesDillon grok my distinction between the real world and abstract models.

First, I don't see any need to engage in discussions of "real-worldidness" or any such concepts. To me, that's like trying to understand the concepts of "outdoors" and "indoors" in terms of spaces having qualities of "outdoorsiness" and "indoorsiness", then asking what may be the essential natures of these qualities. Better just to stick with functional definitions of the original terms.

The distinction between models of reality and reality itself may be illustrated by the following example:

I have a state map in my car which shows, at various points, railroads overlapping state highways. It is a non-trivial matter to question whether, at these points, this apparent overlap represents something physically real, or whether this overlap is merely an artifact arising from the limitations of the model.

To answer this question, one need only travel to these locations and verify that the apparent overlap is not a quality of the real world being modeled, but is merely an artifact arising from the limitations of the medium being used to represent reality.

The map is a model of reality. The railroad and state highway are part of the real world.

Of course, in re the leprechaun question, we can't verify by going somewhere and looking. So we must use other means to determine, if possible (and it is not necessarily possible) whether the doubt present in scientific and/or logical models of the issue corresponds to circumstances in actuality, or whether they are merely an artifact of the limitations of the scientific/logical model of reality.

Whether there are rational means at our disposal to answer this question, which do not involve a leap of faith, is the central question of this thread.

Now, onto further considerations at play when determining the extent to which models are likely to reflect reality....

[Piggy]

Given that there is a distinction between models of reality and reality-as-we-know it, what factors may be rationally considered when determining the extent to which a given model is relevant to the situation at hand?

I'll deal with specific objections in later posts, which I won't have time to write up tonight. But in the meantime, consider this example....

Suppose I'm playing Texas Hold'em (can you tell my hobbies by now?) and it's down to heads-up, me against one opponent.

Given the number of unexposed cards, and the number of cards that can possibly make a hand to beat mine, given what my opponent is showing, my odds of winning (based on that information alone) are 5:1.

There is $200 in the pot. It's $20 to me to call.

Is it to my financial advantage to call?

The answer to this apparently statistical question depends entirely on information that depends on an analysis of the real-world situation.

Even if we leave aside issues such as tells and style of play, consider these possible scenarios....

If I'm at a reputable casino, the statistical model is valid and informative. Because the house takes a toke on the play, the house can make plenty of money legally, so the risk of rigging the game in a regulated and highly visible venue isn't usually worth the payoff. I have a high level of confidence in accepting the results of the model at face value, and interpolating them as-is into the information space that informs my decisons.

On the other hand, suppose I'm an undercover cop investigating a floating game run by known con artists. In that situation, the statistical model cannot be trusted to reflect the world-as-is in any meaningful way. Instead, the model serves as a baseline for my judgments regarding whether the flow of play is plausibly honest, given what each player should know at any given moment.

This is just one example of how the distinction between models and reality plays out.

[Piggy]

There is more to add, even before I get to the synopsis of challenges to the orange position.

Specifically, I'd like to look at the probability of Kim Jong Il's golf score in terms of the model, then in terms of real-world considerations, to examine whether it's rational to declare the margin of doubt in the model an artifact of the model (an overlapping of railroad and highway) by means other than direct observation, and whether it is rational to demand that this margin of doubt be deemed plausible.

But that will have to wait, as it is half past ten and, in true orange fashion, I'm turning into a pumpkin.

[Hellbound]

That would be argument from ignorance.

I don't see it that way. The unfalsifiable claim is an argument from ignorance (recall the condition that there is no supporting evidence), and as such can be dismissed.

If a claim/belief is not built upon evidence, it can be summarily rejected without evidence. This is not a case of commiting logical fallacy, but a case of recognizing a logical fallacy.

And your flabtrons argument wouldn't fall into this, because supposedly the child had some of these particles in the jar. Besides, that argument is falsifiable, at least theoretically. When you look at Sagan's dragon, however, it is by definition unfalsifiable. In addition, there's no evidence to point to it's existence. As such, I would have no problems whatsoever stating it was false.

I'm not sure where this type of argument would go wrong. COuld you show me an example?

[Roboramma]

I don't see it that way. The unfalsifiable claim is an argument from ignorance (recall the condition that there is no supporting evidence), and as such can be dismissed.

Sure, but there's a difference between dismissing a claim and showing that it is certainly false. I agree completely that you can dismiss it, but the meaning of unfalsifiable is that it cannot be shown to be false. That is not a reason to believe it - rather the opposite - but neither is it a justification to say that it's been shown to be false...