The stumbling block for atheists.

[bhsmte]

No; that's just wrong - it's not fallacious to appeal to the authority of experts on the subject - particularly if they represent the consensus of expert opinion on the subject.

Argument from Authority: "A logically fallacious argument from authority grounds a claim in the beliefs of a source that is not authoritative."

Typically it involves quoting as support the opinion or beliefs of an authority who is not an expert in the relevant subject.

Agree. Every time anyone of us goes to a physician for healthcare and we follow that physicians advice, we are appealing to their authority on the matter. Is that a fallacy?

 

[Michael]

Agree. Every time anyone of us goes to a physician for healthcare and we follow that physicians advice, we are appealing to their authority on the matter. Is that a fallacy?

You're comparing a type of pure empirical (lab tested) physics to a *hypothetical* claim! That's an equivocation fallacy. They aren't the same. In the case of *empirical physics*, lab tests can confirm or falsify the claim, and have confirmed many aspects of modern medicine. In the case of generic *hypothetical entities*, nothing of the sort is possible. Even after all their "failed tests" at LHC, PandaX, LUX, etc, the supernatural dogma of "dark matter" lives on. They might falsify a few mathematical models, and they did falsify their "popular" mathematical models, and now it's simply an "exotic matter of the gaps" claim.

If you want a fair comparison, you should be comparing astronomy to medical voodoo, where the witch doctor *promises* that his black magic will cure you so you should trust him to cure you. Voodoo has *exactly* the same empirical effect in the lab as dark matter and dark energy.

 

[Ophiolite]

Ok, I stand corrected. We can't create life *without* starting with preexisting DNA.

Granted. But then, to my limited knowledge we have never attempted to do so.

A failure when no attempt has been made hardly constitutes a genuine failure. Are you aware of any such attempt?

 

[Ana the Ist]

FYI that is a pure appeal to authority fallacy. What "ample evidence" are you even referring to?



FYI, these posts are getting too long for me to respond to them between tech calls at work. I'll probably just pick a few issues from your post to focus on and break up my response into a few posts.

That "something" you're talking about need not be *exotic/supernatural* in nature however. You are simply *assuming* that it A) exists and B) is *supernatural/exotic* in nature. Why part B) in particular? Even if A) (something exists there) is true, how do you know it's exotic in nature?



In terms of "direct" cause/effect justification, you have nothing to support your "belief" in exotic forms of matter. In fact there are numerous supposed "tests" that ruled out all their "popular" mathematical models of exotic matter. In the lab you have nothing, and based on direct observation, that matter could be made of *anything*, and most probably it's made of ordinary plasma just like 99 percent of the mass we *can* identify.



Pure appeal to (false) authority. This is about as convincing to me as "My Priest says so, and he has more "credentials" with respect to the topic of God than you do". How impressive of an argument is that from your perspective? It's certainly not "convincing" from my perspective. Your lack of any empirical cause/effect evidence of your claim isn't my fault, nor does an appeal to authority fallacy make up for your lack of empirical evidence. How can they be "authorities" on a hypothetical entity that continues to mystify and elude them, even after spending *billions* of dollars on "tests" that they themselves came up with? Furthermore their baryonic mass estimates have been *falsified* about a 1/2 dozen times since 2006.



So if you "don't" care, you don't really even question the dogma, but if you do "care", then you feel some need to have no other "possible" explanations for various observations before it's considered "evidence"?

Since I seem to "care", does that change anything, or are only *you personally* relevant to your own argument?



Really? I didn't really find my life changed all that much in terms of my sense of morality or the way I acted during my nine years as an atheist. It didn't change much either once I returned to theism. I do attend church from time to time now, but not all that often, and it's not because I'm "afraid" of anything by not attending. What exactly has to change about your morality or your actions in your opinion simply to embrace theism? I personally found that my basic moral beliefs were entirely congruent with humanism both during my stint as an atheist as well as now. I didn't personally find it made that much difference in the way I acted frankly. I still "helped" people as an atheist, and I still "cared" about others too.



Er, it might be "ok" to suggest that Jesus claimed to know more about God than you seem to know, but the sense of morality he "taught" was pretty much a humanistic value system IMO. In fact, I actually rejected my birth religion on "moral grounds" because some "dogma" of the church really wasn't all that consistent with the sense of morality that Jesus taught.

What exactly would "change" in your behaviors as a result of embracing the red letter parts of the Bible?



As it relates to the topic of God, you seem to require some sort of "cause/effect" justification of "cause" in controlled experimentation that is beyond question in terms of other potential causes, whereas you require nothing of the sort as it relates to "science" and astronomy. What conclusions should I draw from that double standard?

The problem as I see it is that you're imposing two different standards of "evidence" in order for you to 'hold belief'. In the case of astronomy, apparently all you need is to be "told" by supposed "experts" on supernatural entities how you should believe, and that's good enough for you. If I tried that same logic to support "God" based exclusively on a vague understand of what my "pastors" told me, you'd reject it outright. Notice a problem?

Let's start with this "argument from authority" issue...

99% of what people believe is based upon the arguments of authorities. I've never seen direct observational evidence of the Great Barrier Reef...but I believe it's there based upon authorities. I've never visited ancient Rome, nor witnessed any evidence of its existence, yet I believe it exists based upon authorities. The same can be said of much of what I believe regarding biology, geology, history, anthropology, etc.

Now, if I were to argue that it's true that the Great Barrier Reef exists because x person says so...that would be illogical and an argument from authority.

Regarding your priests and pastors...if I were interested in the particular dogma of your religion...then yes! I would accept their knowledge as an authority on that dogma.

The fact that you care about dark matter doesn't change my feelings about it...so no, it doesn't make that part of your argument any more relevant than it already is. However, if the reason why you seem to care so much about dark matter has some relevance...please share...I'm all ears/eyes.

As for your beliefs not changing your life any....really? You don't do anything different? You mentioned going to church...did you do that as an atheist as well? If there's really no change in your life at all...why is believing so important to you?

Also...what's this stuff about Jesus? Who brought him into the picture all of a sudden? You're aware there's no direct observational evidence of Jesus ever existing...so on who's authority do you believe he exists?

I have no idea where you came up with the idea that I need some sort of "cause/effect" justification for god....I don't recall saying anything of the sort. I asked for evidence. You said we could consider his effects (miracles in this case) as evidence for him...so all I wanted was some evidence, some miracles of god which we can examine and come to the conclusion that they are indeed from god. That's why your feelings don't count, that's why helping out bums doesn't qualify, that's why the similar way you believe people feel when they read the bible means zippo.

 

[Ana the Ist]

The gravitational lensing only tells you how much total matter is present. They also have to claim to know how much ordinary "baryonic" matter is present in any given galaxy. That number could *easily* be a matter of "miscalculation" and in fact there is now ample evidence that they did *ridiculously* underestimated the amount of ordinary matter in those colliding galaxies. They underestimated the number of entire stars in various galaxies by a whopping factor of between 3 and 20 times depending on the type of galaxy and the size of the star. They also underestimated the number of stars between galaxies in those colliding clusters, and they also underestimated the original "brightness" by at least a factor of 2, and that brightness figure was used to estimate the baryonic mass.

Thunderbolts Forum • View topic - Lambda-CDM - EU/PC Theory - Confirmation Bias

Not only that, they found more mass around our own galaxy in 2012 in the form of million degree plasma than exists in all the stars in our galaxy. They didn't even know that existed in 2006.



Certainly. It turns out that your "space expansion" thingy is about as impotent in the lab as any supernatural definition of God. Moving objects cause redshift. Inelastic scattering causes redshift in the lab too. Space expansion is a total dud. How do you even know that its even possible for "space expansion" to have any tangible effect on a photon? Let me guess? Some astronomer told you so?

So...to sum up your whole argument...the experts have been wrong about things before, so they could be wrong (making miscalculations) about dark matter as well!

Is that about it? Is that your big objection?

 

[Ana the Ist]

This is one of the inherent conflicts that we have by you assuming that "God" is not "natural". I'm not even sure you can "assume" that awareness and consciousness and life are possible *without* a "quantum God field" type of energy flowing through the entire physical universe.

Ummm...aren't you assuming that life, consciousness, and awareness are possible with a "quantum god field" (which I'm assuming is something you made up and your alternative explanation for dark matter) existing? After all...your god is a living, conscious entity is it not? So what creates the "quantum god field" that gives your god life?

It's not like we can even "create intelligent life" if we wanted to yet, using "intelligence" in our design. We can't even create living organisms in a test tube yet, and even that wouldn't necessarily rule out quantum effects that we simply don't understand yet.

I love when the massive technological strides we've made over the past 150 years are reduced to "but we can't even create test tube life yet!". If you took a man from 200 years ago and brought him to the present we'd appear like magical gods to him...yet somehow you remain unsatisfied.

On behalf of all science I apologize that mankind hasn't unraveled every mystery of the universe yet.

QM definitions of gravity rely upon an hypothesized particle called a "graviton" as it's carrier particle for gravity. We've never seen one in a lab of course, but such particles may indeed exist in "nature" and exist "naturally". Other types of quantum fields may also exist beyond our current knowledge. Most QM definitions of God begin with the premise that consciousness is the original "field" from which all physical things derive, much like the Higg's Boson (God particle) is thought to give rise to mass.

This is starting to read like someone who has a little knowledge of physics...and has filled in the gaps of that knowledge with imagination. I don't know any physicist who believes in "gravitons" anymore.

I would personally assume that "God" is "natural", just as you seem to be assuming that "dark matter" and "dark energy" and "inflation" and "space expansion" are *natural*, even though you've never seen such things in lab experiments.

I think before we can continue our conversation about "evidence" of a "natural" God, you'll have to explain to me what kind of 'evidence' that you think exists for a cosmological claim like "space expansion" or "dark energy", or "dark matter" or something that you "hold belief in".

I think if we don't define what you're calling "evidence" of such things, our conversation will simply go in circles.

Your responses are well thought through thus far, but our posts are becoming prohibitively long for me to respond during the day at this point.

I think I'd like to understand your definition of evidence before I can try to convince you that there is "evidence" to support a Panentheistic cosmology theory, and how such a cosmology theory might result in tangible "effects" on humans which you will accept as "evidence".

Right now, I'm not sure we'll get anywhere unless you can define your concept of evidence beyond just an appeal to authority fallacy. It would be like me claiming that you haven't personally studied the topic of God like the Pope has, or his Cardinals, so I'm not impressed with your 'credentials' on that topic, so if and only if they change their opinions, will I change mine.

That's exactly how your arguments sound to me.

Well I'll tell you what Michael...if you're confident in your understanding of this extremely dense and difficult topic....how would you feel about me copying and pasting these posts on an actual physics forum where scholars, experts, and the like can comment on your grasp of the topic?

 

[Ana the Ist]

I am an astrophysicist, and I'm bothered by people's thinking when it comes to dark matter.

I am an astrophysicist, and I'm bothered by people's thinking when it comes to dark matter. • /r/science

I think this forum could help Michael...give it a read. This is an astrophysicist who has spoken with a lot of people like yourself with misunderstandings about dark matter. He likens them to those creationists who get a little knowledge about evolution ( another dense topic) and then argue that all the experts are wrong.

 

[quatona]

Well I'll tell you what Michael...if you're confident in your understanding of this extremely dense and difficult topic....how would you feel about me copying and pasting these posts on an actual physics forum where scholars, experts, and the like can comment on your grasp of the topic?

IIRC Michael initially did present his ideas to the scientific community and got his butt handed to him on a regular basis. That´s why he ended up here, licking his wounds and complaining about science.

 

[Ana the Ist]

IIRC Michael initially did present his ideas to the scientific community and got his butt handed to him on a regular basis. That´s why he ended up here, licking his wounds and complaining about science.

Anyone...and I do mean anyone...with some depth of knowledge of a particularly deep field of study (especially those with their own languages like physics and computer science) typically realizes at some point the sheer volume of knowledge it would require to be considered an "expert" within those fields.

In spite of his attempt at countering my point...I would definitely look to an expert in Catholic dogma if I wanted an expert opinion on Catholic dogma. Saying that you believe an expert opinion isn't the same as saying "something exists because an expert says it exists". One is merely the belief that an expert knows more about his/her field than you do...the other is claiming a point of fact or truth based on nothing more than the words of an expert.

Michael doesn't seem to understand that I don't claim to know squat about dark matter...I simply trust those who do over him.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Thunderbolts Forum • View topic - Lambda-CDM - EU/PC Theory - Confirmation Bias'

Let's review their track record over the past decade, and please explain to me *exactly* what you think makes them "experts" on dark stuff. Not a single one of their "predictions" in the lab passed any tests. Their baryonic mass estimates they used in 2006 were also shown to be *horrifically* flawed. Their claims about WIMP, axions and sterile neutrinos even failed "observational" tests last year too. What makes them experts on a type of matter that may or may not exist and which has eluded them after spending *billions*?

Not a single one of them can name a single source of "dark energy", let alone explain how it supposedly retains a constant density over multiple exponential increases in volume. The last "test" they ran on SN1A events using a larger data set *decreased* the likelihood of acceleration even happening to just around three sigma, two full sigma short of an actual "discovery" in physics.

What exactly are they "experts" at other than wasting money, time and effort on invisible snipe hunts?

Way to miss the point. Appealing to the authority of the consensus of experts in the relevant field is not a fallacy, it's entirely reasonable. It makes no difference whether you think they're wrong, or even if they are wrong. If you appeal to the expert authority of the 'International Society for Astrological Research' for information on astrology, it is not a fallacious appeal despite the whole subject being fallacious.

 

[Radrook]

Michael doesn't seem to understand that I don't claim to know squat about dark matter...I simply trust those who do over him.

What makes you think that he doesn't understand that?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... I don't know any physicist who believes in "gravitons" anymore.

Oh they're still going strong. Not many physicists think we'll be able to observe them because the energies would likely be too high; but if - as many think (e.g. proponents of Loop quantum gravity) - gravity is a quantum field (i.e. quantized), then gravitons would be implied as quantized excitations of that field. If gravity is not a quantum field, hopes of reconciling GR with quantum mechanics would take a blow.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Ok, I stand corrected. We can't create life *without* starting with preexisting DNA.

Life as we know it requires DNA (unless you include RNA viruses), but we can synthesize the DNA from scratch.

 

[Radrook]

Manipulation and mimicry.

 

[bhsmte]

What makes you think that he doesn't understand that?

The content of his posts.

 

[bhsmte]

Manipulation and mimicry.

What is? Can you be specific?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

What is? Can you be specific?

I think he means our ability to create life using synthesized DNA.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Manipulation and mimicry.

If you mean synthesizing DNA to create life, then yes, obviously any physical creative act involves manipulation, and if we want to create life as we know it, we must mimic life as we know it. Duh.

 

[Strathos]

I see Michael has hijacked another thread

 

[Michael]

Way to miss the point. Appealing to the authority of the consensus of experts in the relevant field is not a fallacy, it's entirely reasonable.

Nope. It "might" be "reasonable" if A) you could demonstrate the existence of the hypothetical particle/energy in question, and B) demonstrate any *successful* outcome of various "tests". Since you can't do either of those things, you've got nothing but a pure appeal to *false* authorities, from folks who's *botched* every "prediction" they ever made with it!

It makes no difference whether you think they're wrong, or even if they are wrong.

Oh, but it does matter if they are wrong. It undermines their supposed "authority"!

If you appeal to the expert authority of the 'International Society for Astrological Research' for information on astrology, it is not a fallacious appeal despite the whole subject being fallacious.

But you have no evidence that astrology has any merit in first place, so how is that a valid scientific argument?

In short, it's nothing but a naked 'appeal to authority' fallacy. She can't cite any evidence to support any of their claims, nor can she cite any evidence to show they are actually "authorities" on that topic in the first place!

By your logic, I'm *required* to accept the legitimacy of astrology simply because I'm not an "expert" in the field of astrology! By that same logic, the Pope must be right about God, and she/you have to be wrong about that topic too, because you're not "authorities" on the topic of God. It's a completely lame and bogus argument.