Originally Posted by
helmuth_hubener
Look, let me try as succinctly as possible, because I know how important that is to you, explain my whole thinking from top to bottom in one post. Can I do it? Let's find out.
1. People have many different ideas about how things work. About what is real.
2. How do we determine which is correct? There are many ways, and at least a few different good ways.
3. One good way turns out to be the empirical scientific method: hypothesize, test, replicate results, conclude, repeat.
4. There are other good ways of determining truth too, for example logical deduction, but we won't get into them now.
5. The method of 3., the empirical scientific method, only works if a hypothesis is testable. More precisely: disprovable. If one cannot devise a test to disprove his hypothesis, one is stuck in the hypothesis stage. Hypothesis alone -- a.k.a. bald assertion -- is one method for determining truth, but not (IMHO) a very good one.
6. For many of the elements of the secular origin hypotheses (plural) which have become current and popular the past hundred to two hundred years, no one has yet devised a test to disprove them. *They have never been tested.* Very important. Some of the elements, it is difficult to see how they could be tested. They may not be testable. Thus they are stuck in the rut described in 5.: hypothesis alone. They are thus not technically a part of the method known as the empirical scientific method. They are not part of that truth-seeking project.
7. They are just stories.
8. How do we determine the truth of stories, or bald assertions, if we can't use the empirical scientific method? Hark back to 2. and 4.: there are other ways.
9. One way is to assess probabilities, harnessing what we do know of reality. The less probable a story is, the less likely it is to be true. For example, let's say a murder takes place and Mr. Monk deduces that the killer is 6'5" from a crease in the blinds or something -- a very good lead! Because a very small percentage of people are that tall. Now why assume that is true rather than another possibility that the killer was wearing stilts? Because although few people are 6'5", even fewer go around wearing stilts! It's a possibility, but it's extremely far-fetched.
10. Assessing probabilities cannot positively disprove any possibilities, just as induction cannot prove anything. There are possibilities at every turn of the case; nothing Mr. Monk says is technically airtight. For every one explanation, there are ten other extremely ludicrous ones, such as that advanced aliens came down and did it and then framed someone.
11. Clearly probability assessment is one useful truth-seeking tool. It does not, indeed cannot, ever disprove anything (this is your repeated point, which I have repeatedly agreed with). This inability does not, however, make it completely irrelevant (this is my point, which.... never mind). It serves particularly well for reconstructing the past.
12. In conclusion.... what's the conclusion? I haven't really had one up to now, but every line of reasoning needs a good conclusion. Hmm, lets see, how about: Every method has its weaknesses. Perhaps we can best get at truth by being willing to apply all of them, as best we can, each to the realm and situation to which it is best suited.
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