Evolution

Sayre said:

So lets all be global skeptics? What is the solution?

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I´m not even sure I have understood what the problem is supposed to be - apart from semantics.

ETA:
Evolution is a scientific concept. Science has established its criteria for what´s considered a scientific fact quite fine in the scientific method (criteria which, if you will, are the scientific equivalent to your "justified belief"). The consensus is that evolution meets these criteria.

Now, you can have three different discussions:
1. You are unsure if evolution theory meets these criteria. (Natural scientists will be quite happy to fill you in on that).
2. More fundamentally, you are questioning the justification for this scientific justification - you are questioning the validity and usefulness of the scientific method. (You picked evolution for an example, but you could have picked any other scientific theory just as much. -> You are invited to present a better method.)
3. You are, most fundamentally, determined to - in infinite regress - engage in questioning any justification, any justification of this justification and so forth. I.e. you expect a scientific fact or a justified belief to meet criteria for "eternal truths" - without even being able to name those criteria (And yes, in being determined to do that you´d set yourself up not only for "global skepticism" but even for "epistemological nihilism".)

Now which is the discussion you are seeking?

(On another note - and unless you are seeking discussion #1 - it would be kind of surprising that you are appealing to the concept of "reasonable person" when it´s actually on the same epistemological level as the scientific method.)

Sayre said:

So lets all be global skeptics? What is the solution?

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Sayre, I'm not saying that JTB is wrong, it is just that the outsider test isn't the epitome of criteria for epistemological considerations of faith and Christianity. The main problem is that this is how God left it to us, and we think it sucks.

Peace

The closet thing to a counter example I can imagine are creatures such as the coelacanth, which remain virtually unchanged for millions of years.

Sayre said:

@quatona - I am not questioning the truth of evolution. I am only questioning whether it is knowledge or belief. To be knowledge, it must be a JTB+. Is there any qualifier (the +) that could render evolution only a belief rather than knowledge? Is there a gettier counter example for evolution?

@2phil - I honestly wish there was a more defined Christian epistemic framework. I get lost easily in it.

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Yes, Sayre, I sometimes wish that too. But, it's like this.

If you have, then more will be given. If you don't have, then even what you have will be taken away.

Just don't get sucked into some kind of 'Logical Positivism' along the way; God isn't going to avail any of us with the kind of gratifying evidence that we crave. We will get pieces of the pie now, but not the whole pie until we die.

Can you give a defence for why justified true belief should be the standard for 'knowledge'? Is it certain that any of your beliefs are true?

Sayre said:

@quatona - I am not questioning the truth of evolution. I am only questioning whether it is knowledge or belief.

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Well, if you don´t question that it´s true I don´t know how you can possibly question that it´s knowledge.

To be knowledge, it must be a JTB+. Is there any qualifier (the +) that could render evolution only a belief rather than knowledge? Is there a gettier counter example for evolution?

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Do (would) you also ask such questions about gravity theory?

Sayre,

The problem I have with us deciding that justified true belief counts as knowledge is that we cannot know with certainty that any particular belief is true. Therefore, we can never say, 'Such and such belief is knowledge, while such and such other belief is merely a belief.'

In my opinion, the whole definition is self-referential - for it to be knowledge, it must be true. And for us to know that it is true, we need to know that our knowledge is true. And so on.

I would say instead that there is no hard and fast line between knowledge and belief. Rather, a belief for which there is a large amount of evidence and that we can continually test is more 'knowledge' than a belief in something for which there is a small amount of evidence and that is difficult to test.

I think that the 'true' part of the 'justified true belief' is the stumbling block.

Sayre said:

Hi Quatona,

If you mean to ask whether I have assessed the strength of the scientific evidence, then yes I have. But I've never assessed the claim of evolution for a gettier type counter example.

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How could we possibly exclude the option that a certain scientific fact is a gettier type example? What I am wondering is: Why do you single out evolution when this is a basic epistemological problem (if it is a problem at all) of every fact?
And why and for what would the distinction between "belief" and "knowledge" (in your definitions) even be of relevance?
As far as I am concerned I am completely satisfied with something being a fact. Feel free to call my acknowledgement of this fact "knowledge" (or if, as it seems, you are trying to establish a definition of "knowledge" that generally excludes knowledge) call it "belief". No skin of my nose - as long as you apply those definitions consistently.

On another note, those gettier examples I have found were single claims that accidentally were true (and in which the false premise was also very simple and easy to spot). Whereas a scientific theory is a complex explanation of complex mechanisms.
Now, maybe you could give us hypothetical false premises that would render gravity or evolution gettier examples?

I would ask this question of any idea for which people often label "beliefs" when I think they should be knowledge.

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And I don´t think it is a good philosophical approach to first define "knowledge" in a way that makes knowledge generally an impossibility, and then in the next step demand something to be "knowledge".

Sayre said:

I am not singling evolution out.

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That´s why I am trying to replace it by other - equally established scientific explanations - just so I get a better idea what the problem is you feel needs to be addressed.

I get the impression you think I am some kind of creationists who rejects evolution and wants to label it a belief?

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Your impression is inaccurate.
I´d appreciate you to address my questions, statements and points (I have put quite some effort writing them down, after all -simply because I wanted to understand better what exactly is the problem you are trying to describe)rather than forming an impression about what I might think . Do you think this is possible for you, and if so, are you willing to do it?

But often when I debate, I hear people label evolution a belief, and I'm checking there are no philosophical loop holes. It's turtles all the way.

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And I keep telling you: By your criteria and standards for "knowledge" (which are impossible to meet per definition) everything must be called a "belief".

David Gould said:

I do not think that the distinction between belief and knowledge is a meaningful one (and even less so if knowledge is being defined as 'justified true belief').

Given that we can only really rely on inductive reasoning, how do we know that we know? How do we can have a justified and true belief that what we are justified in believing based on our current understanding of the universe is in fact true?

I think that a lot of the debates about knowledge are attempts to trick us into the notion that any belief is as likely to be true as any other.

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Yeah, knowledge seems to be belief stamping its foot down and saying, "I'm also on justified grounds!" Speaking of the two definitions of knowledge I've heard, as true, justified belief, and as representing something as it is on an adequate basis of reasoning or experience. (What is the limit of justification in either case?)

From a theistic perspective (i.e., the only perspective with a subset that feels threatened by evolution), either evolution is true and God is somehow minimally involved or not involved at all, or God is really screwing with us by, e.g., planting fossils and fake carbon dating them to throw off people who care about facts. The latter brings to mind a quote by Bill Hicks:

2PhiloVoid said:

the Outside Test for Faith, recently proposed by John W. Loftus

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Well, popularised. Not proposed. It's at least as old as Jefferson, if not older.

Sayre said:

Do you think we have knowledge of evolution, or is it still just belief?

Is evolution a justified true belief?

Is there a gettier counter example you could come up with that might make evolution a belief rather than knowledge?

It seems like that is what embedded age "false history" claims do - they form as gettier counter examples to render evolution belief rather than knowledge.

Thoughts?

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I’m not sure whether I’d use “knowledge” vs “belief” in this context (or any context at all). Technically speaking science provides models, which have varying degrees of evidence. At first I’d say that evolution is a well-established model.

However I have two caveats.

1) Evolution is actually a class of models. They share basic features, but specific models develop over time. This isn’t unusual. Gravitation has similar features. So do other areas. Scientists don’t necessarily use consistent terminology, but there’s a tendency to call such as larger area of understanding “theory.” (Not “a theory,” I don’t think. The term is typically used like a collective noun, e.g. “quantum theory.”)

2) Evolution can be used either for this class of models or for the basic phenomenon of species developing over time, independent of explanation. I’m reluctant to use a loaded term like “fact,” but that’s what people mean when they call evolution a “fact.” I think scientists would be more likely to call it an observation or a set of observations.

I would speak of understanding either or both of these things as “knowledge.” But there can certainly be beliefs as well, as in “I believe that evolution is a credible model (or more precisely a good theory)” or more specifically belief that some particular, more detailed model looks like a good explanation for the data we currently have.

Yet whenever we take things in this way we do not yet have a proper understanding of what is happening in this concern for absolute certainty in metaphysics. What is ultimate must also be capable of being known in the ultimate sense. Yet what is the status of the concerns of metaphysics for an ultimate certainty? It always tends to be pointed out as a particular characteristic that modernity since Descartes no longer starts from the existence of God or from proofs of God, but from consciousness, from the I. We can see that the I, consciousness, reason, person, spirit indeed stand at the centre of the problematic. If we heed this fact and ask whether this central position of the I, of self-consciousness, does not in the end express the fact that in modern philosophy the questioning I is also put into question, then we must say: This is indeed the case, yet in a peculiar way. For the I, consciousness, the person is taken into metaphysics in such a way that this I is precisely not put into question. This does not mean a simple failure to put into question. Rather the I or consciousness is precisely placed at the basis as the most secure and unquestioned formulation of this metaphysics, so that in modern metaphysics a quite specific comprehensive questioning manifests itself, an inclusive comprehending of the questioner in a negative sense, in such a way that the I itself becomes the foundation for all further questioning. Here we find the innermost connection between the priority of the problem of the subject and of the question of certainty, and the question concerning the content of traditional metaphysics.Heidegger, Martin – The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude [Indiana, 1995, McNeill, William & Walker, Nicholas trans. p. 55]

All philosophy of knowledge and beliefs that assumes the Self as the starting point, rather than the logos of the cosmos being eternal and self-caused, runs into the same issue of justifying truth - metaphysics splits into epistemology and ontology and the (post-)modern confusion reigns.

Man is not the measure of all things - the cosmos is logical (Aristotle "invented" the concept of Energy in The Metaphysics, along with logic and the relation of mathematics) and always has been - and we did not make it.

Energy always behaves logically, from the very first observation we can make of it (using Logic, of course) because it was defined as such. All of science since relies on the pre-supposition of Logic. Theology celebrates this.

Human beings know many things many ways. To those who have ha d a personal religious experience of the divine logos through the techniques of logical philosophy will doubtless sing it's praises.

I like Bach's Mass in B minor myself. Logic reigns, whether you argue if it is belief or knowledge.