Ten arguments for intelligent design

FrumiousBandersnatch

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Then your scientific 'world' depends entirely upon a belief being used as a measure (or a criterion). It is also, a circular argument.
Disappointing .. but so be it.

See, your above argument conceals the underlying (and undeclared) assumption of the 'existence of truth', (ie: 'holding something as true'), as being the measure of what is a fact, and what isn't a fact .. and yet there is no test we can do to establish 'the existence of truth' (your measure) in the first place! This of course, also violates science's principle of using only operational definitions, what's more. 'A proposition' is used as a rather insidious way of concealing this. I view it as being more or less, a weasel concept.
This is a straw-man misrepresentation of my views.

It was you who claimed that a hypothesis was a belief. I generally try to avoid using the concept of belief in scientific matters.

E.T.A. and I see truth in this context in terms of correspondence with the world, which cannot be established with certainty.
 
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SelfSim

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This is a straw-man misrepresentation of my views.

You specifically said:
FrumiousBandersnatch said:
... and holding something as true (believing it)
'True' is thus your measure of whether something is a belief or not. How is that a strawman misrepresentation? That's exactly what you said. When I try and test 'true', I find I cannot do that .. its untestable, (its actually a posit in your logic), therefore your measure for distinguishing between 'belief' and 'not belief', is untestable.

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
It was you who claimed that a hypothesis was a belief.
And it is .. until it gets tested .. until that happens, it remains a testable belief, (or using tautology: a testable hypothesis).
FrumiousBandersnatch said:
I generally try to avoid using the concept of belief in scientific matters.
I understand that's your intention (as per the distinction you attempt to make between a proposition and a belief).. But the measure for distinguishing 'a proposition' and 'a belief' is itself, an untestable concept of: 'true', as per your words above .. And I get that this not your intention .. but that's the problem here.
You're intention of using a criteria for distinguishing between the two, is flawed by its own untestabilty.
You have assumed 'true' exists .. but its fails in its own testability.
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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You specifically said:'True' is thus your measure of whether something is a belief or not. How is that a strawman misrepresentation?
The strawman was your statement that my scientific view, "depends entirely upon a belief being used as a measure (or a criterion)". I don't think belief is a useful concept in science, although it's often used colloquially; for example, to indicate that observations are provisionally taken to be factual data about the world, e.g. "We believe we have captured data about X, but independent verification is required".
 
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SelfSim

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The strawman was your statement that my scientific view, "depends entirely upon a belief being used as a measure (or a criterion)".
Ok then lets address your usage of 'true' then .. can you show me some classic scientific objective test where 'true' has been used as the criterion for weeding out some belief from something that science has concluded is real (ie: 'not a belief')? When you do this, can you also show how this thing: 'true', is actually also what's been tested .. and not simply agreement on perceived consistencies recorded across multiple observations?

I gave my example somewhere recently (see here) illustrating how 'blue' is determined scientifically, (which also addresses 'believed' vs 'not believed', 'true' vs 'not true') using a recent web debate on the colour of a photographed dress.

Such an example of some test would be more persuasive than some arbitrary and pragmatic boundary notion of 'truth' .. Especially to scientists (as it was in the dress example).

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
I don't think belief is a useful concept in science, although it's often used colloquially; for example, to indicate that observations are provisionally taken to be factual data about the world, e.g. "We believe we have captured data about X, but independent verification is required".
Sure .. not all minds think alike, and its also clear that beliefs are more widely varied across populations than the consistencies noted amongst those populations from their observations.

Science takes observations as 'factual data' only because they've already tested-out .. and not because they're 'true' .. the latter is just superfluous baggage that holds no meaning in science because its never what's actually been tested.
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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Ok then lets address your usage of 'true' then .. can you show me some classic scientific objective test where 'true' has been used as the criterion for weeding out some belief from something that science has concluded is real (ie: 'not a belief')? When you do this, can you also show how this thing: 'true', is actually also what's been tested .. and not simply agreement on perceived consistencies recorded across multiple observations?
As I already said, I don't think truth can be established with certainty about states of affairs in the world, so I wouldn't expect it to be used in science, except colloquially or qualified as provisional.

Science takes observations as 'factual data' only because they've already tested-out .. and not because they're 'true' .. the latter is just superfluous baggage that holds no meaning in science because its never what's actually been tested.
I broadly agree with that - depending on what you mean by 'tested-out', which isn't a scientific usage I'm familiar with.
 
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SelfSim

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So, I’ve been re-reading the arguments presented in this thread, thinking more carefully and chatting with other folk about them.

Not by way of attempting to construct some silly strawman, but more by way of confirming my understanding, I have distilled what I think are the key elements of reasoning behind Frumious' (and Bungle's?) counter-arguments to what I have presented (see below).

For brevity’s sake, I also present what I see as being the flaws in those arguments immediately below each point. They are as follows:

i) Our observations lead us to generate hypotheses, such as mind-independent reality, the predictions of which, we discover to be consistent with that hypothesis (eg: 'something' stimulates the human electro-senses model). Yes, the meaning of Mind-Independent Reality (MIR) is a human construct, and yes, the interpretations of our observations are human constructs. Thus far, this is where scientific inference leads. (My add on to this is that this is still a Mind Dependent Reality (MDR) model of MIR made for convenience and expediency).

The problem here is that this is not an hypothesis at all, because it's not the thing that actually gets tested. The 'external stimulant' mind independence component, is tacked on extraneously, and has nothing to do with either the model, or the reasons we use the model.

ii) A 'belief' is a notion held as being true. In science, if used at all, it's something provisionally accepted as true.

Since belief is a human (English) word, we can use it to mean whatever we want (so it's futile to argue about what a belief really is). Thinking more carefully, it would be more useful to have words like this;
- have a meaning which can distinguish two kinds of truth .. objective truth: that we hold because it passes tests that it could have failed, and helps us create accurate predictions and;
- a more subjective form of truth that we hold simply out of a kind of untested preference.

So, in the latter sense, the word "belief", then has nothing to do with scientific thinking. Instead, we just choose what we are going to hold as true, provisionally, and what we are going to test, because we can't test everything all the time. The scientist does not believe their assumptions (eg such as: ‘We’ll assume the absence of air resistance for a falling object’), they merely act as if this were true until they decide that they wish to test them.

iii) Ok, so when testing a prediction of an hypothesis, (such as the one proposed in (i) above), one is testing a logical consequence of that hypothesis; one doesn't know whether one should accept the prediction as being 'true provisionally', until it has been agreed as being logically consistent with that hypothesis. Therefore the: 'something stimulates the human electro-senses' 'hypothesis' is true, provisionally.

As per my response in (i) above, if we remove that part of any hypothesis that is actually going to be tested, the test remaining, is still just exactly the same. Therefore, any added element in the hypothesis, is both extraneous and irrelevant as far as the test is concerned. Take any example, any theory being tested, any cure for any disease to see this. Eg: if you cure measles, are you testing that measles exists in some MIR, or are you just testing that you have an objective (consistent) outcome there?

So, in summary, the status of ‘provisionally true’ produced under the guise of scientific inference, doesn’t actually produce slightest hint of an objective test for the mind independence ‘add-on’ .. and so it doesn’t matter how much agreement the argument gathers amongst logical thinkers. If it could be shown to be wrong, it would be testable, and that would then make it not extraneous.
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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iii) ...one doesn't know whether one should accept the prediction as being 'true provisionally', until it has been agreed as being logically consistent with that hypothesis. Therefore the: 'something stimulates the human electro-senses' 'hypothesis' is true, provisionally.
I can't make sense of this; as has been said, a prediction, in a scientific context, is a logical consequence of a hypothesis; you test it to establish whether to reject the hypothesis. When the predictions of a hypothesis have been sufficiently well tested, it may be considered a theory, i.e. taken to be a viable explanation or model of the phenomena behind the observations that led to the formulation of the hypothesis. What may be provisionally taken to be true is that the theory is a viable explanation or model, because it has been well tested and predicts our observations.

This is basic stuff; that it can be so mangled in your iii) above, is really surprising.
 
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SelfSim

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I can't make sense of this; as has been said, a prediction, in a scientific context, is a logical consequence of a hypothesis; you test it to establish whether to reject the hypothesis. When the predictions of a hypothesis have been sufficiently well tested, it may be considered a theory, i.e. taken to be a viable explanation or model of the phenomena behind the observations that led to the formulation of the hypothesis. What may be provisionally taken to be true is that the theory is a viable explanation or model, because it has been well tested and predicts our observations.
So, ‘the phenomena behind the observations’ you refer to above, is equivalent to ‘the something’ in the hypothesis (even though its not actually an hypothesis at all) of:
Something' stimulates the human electro-senses’.

So, what if we replace ‘the something’ with something else which is equally untestable in our hypothesis .. I don’t know let’s use ’God’, as follows:
‘God stimulates the human electro senses’.
This hypothesis generates myriads of predictions one of which may be:
‘God made planets to stimulate the human electro senses’.

Many planets have been independently observed, thus verifying that our hypothesis consistently predicts our observations. The hypothesis may now be taken as provisionally true because it has been well tested and predicts our observations.

What’s the difference between ‘God’ and ‘the something’ which stimulates our electro senses or; ‘the phenomenon' behind the observations, given that none of them is ever tested in their respective hypotheses? They are all extraneous inclusions.

.. Oh .. and don’t bother saying you don’t understand what I mean here. After all, what I’m saying is pretty basic stuff and I can’t understand how you’ve mangled these things for so long.
('Patience has its limits').
 
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SelfSim

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The other point that needs to be made here is that the difference between ‘the something’ out there and ‘the something’ I imagine to be out there, is not a difference in the concept of ‘the something’.
To say that something 'exists', even in the case of God, is not to predicate a property that its concept lacks if the thing did not exist.
 
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Bungle_Bear

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This hypothesis generates myriads of predictions one of which may be:
‘God made planets to stimulate the human electro senses’.

Many planets have been independently observed, thus verifying that our hypothesis consistently predicts our observations.
That does not, in any way, support either the prediction that "God made planets" or the alternative prediction that "planets stimulate the human electro senses".
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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What’s the difference between ‘God’ and ‘the something’ which stimulates our electro senses or; ‘the phenomenon' behind the observations, given that none of them is ever tested in their respective hypotheses? They are all extraneous inclusions.
You're really asking the wrong person about God; it seems to me an ill-defined and incoherent hypothesis, but as I understand it, it's something that is not constrained to generating the patterns, consistencies, & regularities that we observe and have modelled, but we can never observe the results of its activities - so it's an untestable hypothesis that something extraordinarily capable exists that has no observable effects. But, as I say, you're better off asking someone who believes in such things.

.. Oh .. and don’t bother saying you don’t understand what I mean here. After all, what I’m saying is pretty basic stuff and I can’t understand how you’ve mangled these things for so long.
('Patience has its limits').
No need for the snark; it wasn't me that mangled your post, and I took the time to correct it for you.
 
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SelfSim

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FrumiousBandersnatch said:
You're really asking the wrong person about God; it seems to me an ill-defined and incoherent hypothesis, but as I understand it, it's something that is not constrained to generating the patterns, consistencies, & regularities that we observe and have modelled, but we can never observe the results of its activities - so it's an untestable hypothesis that something extraordinarily capable exists that has no observable effects. But, as I say, you're better off asking someone who believes in such things.

And it took your mind to conceive everything you just described there (the evidence is in what you wrote .. and I agree with it) .. with no indications of a need for ‘a something’ or such a ‘thing’ stimulating the electro senses. In other words, ‘God’ is still a concept (mind dependent) and I agree .. its an objectively untestable one, yet its apparently real to the believer .. it exists! That’s precisely how our minds give reality its meaning.

The instant we admit; ‘the something’ (external) stimulating the electro senses, as a criteria for ‘what’s real’ (and I’m not saying you’re necessarily doing that) the door is wide open to other such ‘somethings’ coming in through it, when all along, we should’ve just admitted that the ‘something’ was also nothing more than a belief in the first place .. (or a completely a extraneous inclusion).

The ‘generating the patterns, consistencies, & regularities’ you cite as the criteria is, itself, breached by the absence of such an admission.
 
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SelfSim

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I think the point you're making is that, contrary to your claim, you are a solipsist.
Ok .. do tell .. There's a fine, but very distinct, line .. I may have inadvertently strayed over it .. If so, could you please so indicate and I'll correct?
 
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