Calling out KellyJay

Originally posted by telerion
We have fossils. We deduce dinosaurs' structures from there.
We have radioactive isotopes in rocks. We deduce the time of decay from there.

Yes, you have a point?
Kelly

Originally posted by vistesd
Tel, it’s been so many years since I did any statistics at all—and I have a great talent for forgetting whatever I do not use regularly—is the following statement an accurate (if perhaps redundantly stated) encapsulation of what you and serigado have been saying (across several threads now)?

Statistical methodology not only extrapolates from known data po ...[text shortened]... ds him; he is saying that it does not. (Not trying to put words into any player’s mouth here.)

Unsustainable, skepticism if I understand your point means that if
we cannot identify what could possibly cause the error it is not part
of the forumla to make predictions or grasp the possible errors
any model my have?
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
1. We have fossils, the fossils they are the facts, what we think about
them or our conclusions may or may not be true.

Granted.

Now, what do you think the likelihood of the sharp-toothed dinosaur's
diet? You know everything I know: you've seen similar sharp-toothed animals
eat meat, you've not seen similar sharp-toothed animals not eat meat.

What's your verdict?

Nemesio

Originally posted by KellyJay
Unsustainable, skepticism if I understand your point means that if
we cannot identify what could possibly cause the error it is not part
of the forumla to make predictions or grasp the possible errors
any model my have?
Kelly

I think, at the simplest level, it would run like this: If you ask me if I had lunch in Paris yesterday, and I answer, “I don’t know.” This is but one step above the hand example—i.e., we’re now talking about a past, rather than an immediate, point in time. If I can’t say with some certainty that I did or did not have lunch yesterday in Paris, then what can I say about anything outside the immediate present? Can I say that the world existed yesterday? If I can’t say that with certainty, or, barring that, with some probability, then I cannot say anything about yesterday—or one second ago.

There seems to be plenty of evidence that the world existed yesterday—indeed, that it existed before my birth. If I cannot trust that evidence—as evidence—then my skepticism is at such a basic level that I can trust nothing. If my brain is so scrambled that I can’t know if I had lunch in Paris yesterday (or breakfast there this morning), then I have no basis for looking at the words on this computer screen and believing that I myself have typed them, just a moment ago.

The point being, that there are some things for which, if we don’t accept the evidence given, epistemology itself (our ability to think that we can know anything at all) gets kicked right apart.

Similarly, if we can’t tell from teeth what kind of food an animal (living, dead or extinct) ate—within the range of some determinable probability—then all of zoology goes down the drain. Because what reason then for concluding that an animal with legs used them for mobility, or that one with a nose breathed—or in the case of a bird who cannot fly, though it has wings, that either they represent a vestigial ability or else there occurred compensating features that allow the bird to nevertheless function and survive, features which are also identifiable?

If we can’t assume—to take Nemesio’s other example—that gravity has operated the same way in the past as it does now, then all ability to understand the physics of the cosmos goes down the drain; i.e., science isn’t wrong, it is impossible. If all of the basic forces of the cosmos were at some time different, then that state of affairs was not this cosmos at all.

A lot has been written about scientific methodology on other threads. One of the standard principles is that of falsifiability. If a given model is not potentially falsifiable based on the evidence, then it is not a scientific model. If you take away the principle of falsifiability (or the alternative of verifiability, which I think is deemed not so strong a criteria), you are not doing science differently; you are not doing science at all.

This discussion seems to be on the flip side of that coin: if you take away the very ability to draw conclusions based on the evidence, you are not doing a different kind of science; you are doing no science at all. Some things are at that basic level.

Nemesio and others are claiming that the very places where you invoke faith, as opposed to testable empiricism and reasoning therefrom, so kick the legs from under epistemology that one is left with either believing anything willy-nilly, or believing nothing at all—which seem to me to come to something of the same thing. You are claiming that your challenges to science and philosophy are not that basic at all, but are more case-specific. The examples they choose seem to me to represent an attempt to sort that out. (At least that’s how I’m reading it all.)

Do you have any reason to believe that you did or did not have lunch in Paris yesterday? How about last year? Do you have any reason to believe that your parents were not Chinese before, and up until, your conception? What evidence do you admit, and how do you assign probabilities?

At some basic level, everything becomes faith willy-nilly, or nothing does. Where is that line? How do you decide where that line is, and then apply it to specific cases?

Originally posted by Nemesio
Granted.

Now, what do you think the likelihood of the sharp-toothed dinosaur's
diet? You know everything I know: you've seen similar sharp-toothed animals
eat meat, you've not seen similar sharp-toothed animals not eat meat.

What's your verdict?

Nemesio

Incase you did not read my other responses to this question I said
I agreed with you that odds are they were meat eaters, yet I will not
call my assumptions fact.
Kelly

Originally posted by vistesd
I think, at the simplest level, it would run like this: If you ask me if I had lunch in Paris yesterday, and I answer, “I don’t know.” This is but one step above the hand example—i.e., we’re now talking about a past, rather than an immediate, point in time. If I can’t say with some certainty that I did or did not have lunch yesterday in Paris, then what c ...[text shortened]... Where is that line? How do you decide where that line is, and then apply it to specific cases?

"At some basic level, everything becomes faith willy-nilly, or nothing does. Where is that line? How do you decide where that line is, and then apply it to specific cases?[/b]

Reality does not require me to define it, just as when we look at the
teeth to figure out if something ate meat or not, the teeth are reality!
Can the views about the teeth be wrong no matter what we think?
If the subject is something more people disagree about does reality
change with the number of people who agree about it this way or
that? If so than reality is nothing but a willy-nilly personal opinion of
people who think they know. It is odd the complaints I have seen
about ID people are being displayed here in other things, ID people
think they see design in life and that is rejected as science, but if
I question an accepted belief about time I simply do not see or
understand like the gifted here it seems.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
1. We have fossils, the fossils they are the facts, what we think about
them or our conclusions may or may not be true.

But you have accepted one of those conclusions - the existence of dinosaurs at some time in the past - to be the truth. In fact you treat it as indisputable truth. Are you now saying that the existence of dinosaurs in the past may not be true and is merely a matter of faith?

I do not see how I have been not saying the same thing over and
over! You want to treat your conclusions like the ID people do, that
is completely up to you, for me any time you do that, the next piece
of data that rolls in may change how we view something, it is not
my fault you want your conclusion to be equal to the thing you are
holding in your hand.
Kelly
But you carefully misinterpreted my question and avoided admitting to the fact that you were making a conclusion (that dinosaurs existed) and tried to focus on the shape of the bones etc. You are not 'holding in your hand' a live dinosaur. Maybe there is some as yet unknown process that results in certain chemicals forming a shape that looks remarkably like fossilized bones.

So please go through it again and answer the question properly:
Why can you make the conclusion that the dinosaurs existed but not the conclusion about their age?

Originally posted by twhitehead
But you have accepted one of those conclusions - the existence of dinosaurs at some time in the past - to be the truth. In fact you treat it as indisputable truth. Are you now saying that the existence of dinosaurs in the past may not be true and is merely a matter of faith?

[b]I do not see how I have been not saying the same thing over and
over! You can you make the conclusion that the dinosaurs existed but not the conclusion about their age?

[/b]"We have the fossils (today) looking at them today we see their size
and shape, since we define dinosaurs according to structure we can
see it and therefore define them.

1. We have fossils, the fossils they are the facts, what we think about
them or our conclusions may or may not be true. "

I wrote this to answer your question, now if you read what I wrote
instead of what you are attempting to make it say, you will notice I
said that the fossils were the facts of this discussion, and we have
been defining them due to the structure. Now that means that I've
not made the leap of calling something a fact outside of what we have
here, you are bending over backwards in the attempt to make it sound
like I have. If all you are trying to do now is find me misspeaking
and your argument has been reduced to that I take it we are about
done? Now if you want to dance around the fossils, fine by me, like
I said we have the fossils, that is factual what we think about them
could be right or wrong. You are the only one that is bouncing between
what is factual and isn't not me.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
"We have the fossils (today) looking at them today we see their size
and shape, since we define dinosaurs according to structure we can
see it and therefore define them.

1. We have fossils, the fossils they are the facts, what we think about
them or our conclusions may or may not be true. "

I wrote this to answer your question, now if you read ...[text shortened]... ong. You are the only one that is bouncing between
what is factual and isn't not me.
Kelly

So are you saying that the existence of dinosaurs in the past is not a fact and that you remain skeptical?

If so, then lets move to another question. Do you believe that stars exist? Is it factual that they exist or do you remain skeptical? We cannot visit them (even the sun) we cannot 'hold them in our hands' nor can we even observe them in real time, all the data we have about them being tens of years to billions of years old (even the age of the data is under dispute by you). The only information we have about them is the various types of electromagnetic radiation we receive from them.
No human being has ever visited mars. Are you skeptical about its existence? Is its existence fact or a mater of faith based on assumptions that could well be wrong?

Originally posted by KellyJay
Am I supposed to think than that you believe you are without error
and cannot be wrong about your views? I should just simply
acquiesce, since obviously in your opinion the interpretation is with out
a doubt flawless, there is nothing that has been over looked or
misunderstood, I mean that is what you’re telling me! You are in error
too when you sugge ...[text shortened]... being inconsistent when you make such arguments,
yet you give yourselves passes on that!
Kelly

Am I supposed to think than that you believe you are without error
and cannot be wrong about your views? I should just simply
acquiesce, since obviously in your opinion the interpretation is with out
a doubt flawless, there is nothing that has been over looked or
misunderstood, I mean that is what you’re telling me!

Actually, I don't think that is even remotely close to what I was telling you. To be clear and dispel this misconception you formed, I treat my beliefs in these matters as fallible and the evidence at our disposal as defeasible.

I think your claim that it all boils down to "faith" (including what I think you take to be some quasi-corollary that one view is as merited as any other) is a bunch of crap. Yes, I agree with you that there is always the possibility of error in our inferences. So what? It is still the case that some explanations are better than others because they accord more strongly with the evidence and are therefore more probably correct. If you want to make a considered case and present your reasons for your view, then great; but this behavior where you simply discard what others present as countervailing evidence merely on the basis that what they present lacks certainty -- it's a charade.

Originally posted by KellyJay
"At some basic level, everything becomes faith willy-nilly, or nothing does. Where is that line? How do you decide where that line is, and then apply it to specific cases?

Reality does not require me to define it, just as when we look at the
teeth to figure out if something ate meat or not, the teeth are reality!
Can the views about the teeth be ...[text shortened]... pted belief about time I simply do not see or
understand like the gifted here it seems.
Kelly[/b]

I don’t know much about “ID people.” Nor was I speaking about them.

I said “at some basic level”. . .

______________________________

I would say that knowing whether or not—

(1) you ate lunch in Paris yesterday; or

(2) your parents were Chinese before you were conceived; or

(3) we can predict with great certainty what animals eat from the structure of their teeth; or

(4) some basic features and/or forces of the universe changed sharply several thousand years ago—

—are all in the same epistemological category: if one is a matter of faith; they are all matters of faith. If one is skeptical about being able to know the answer to one, then one must be skeptical about the others.

Are any of these not simply matters of faith?

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]Am I supposed to think than that you believe you are without error
and cannot be wrong about your views? I should just simply
acquiesce, since obviously in your opinion the interpretation is with out
a doubt flawless, there is nothing that has been over looked or
misunderstood, I mean that is what you’re telling me!

Actually, I don't think ...[text shortened]... iling evidence merely on the basis that what they present lacks certainty -- it's a charade.[/b]

It isn't a charade; the only thing we lack in our estimation today is
humility you can acknowledge you could be wrong, yet you say so
what! If you wish to make claims about things by all means do so,
your view could be right or not I do not see one wit a difference
between you and some ID person who claims it is obvious that life
was designed it is evident by all the things we see in its makeup.
Kelly

Originally posted by vistesd
I don’t know much about “ID people.” Nor was I speaking about them.

I said “at some basic level”. . .

______________________________

I would say that knowing whether or not—

(1) you ate lunch in Paris yesterday; or

(2) your parents were Chinese before you were conceived; or

(3) we can predict with great certainty what animals eat from ...[text shortened]... one must be skeptical about the others.

Are any of these [b]not simply matters of faith?[/b]

1. I know where I ate yesterday it isn’t a matter of faith for me, you taking my word for it, would be. It is in the here and now and part of my universe.
2. Providing I know my parents and I’m aware of our heritage, it is part of my here and now, part of my universe the answer to that question is factual. People have been wrong about this.
3. yes
4. I’d say they started several thousand years ago, but that is just a belief on my part.

Kelly

Originally posted by twhitehead
So are you saying that the existence of dinosaurs in the past is not a fact and that you remain skeptical?

If so, then lets move to another question. Do you believe that stars exist? Is it factual that they exist or do you remain skeptical? We cannot visit them (even the sun) we cannot 'hold them in our hands' nor can we even observe them in real time, ...[text shortened]... ence? Is its existence fact or a mater of faith based on assumptions that could well be wrong?

You can move on to other questions all you want, I bottom lined it out
for you already if you wish to dismiss the stance I have taken do so.
If you really cannot grasp what I have written, spell out your confusion
for me, I think we have gone over all of this before all you are doing
now is changing the objects of discussion.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
1. I know where I ate yesterday it isn’t a matter of faith for me, you taking my word for it, would be. It is in the here and now and part of my universe.
2. Providing I know my parents and I’m aware of our heritage, it is part of my here and now, part of my universe the answer to that question is factual. People have been wrong about this.
3. yes
4. I’d say they started several thousand years ago, but that is just a belief on my part.

Kelly

I’m not sure I’m reading your answer to (3) right: “Yes” it is something that we can know with some certainty, or “Yes” it is matter of faith? (I may have worded the question badly.)

I see no qualitative difference between any of them. Let’s just take (2) and (4), for example: In one case, you rely on the physical evidence to come to a conclusion about facts in the past based on observations in the present; and in the other case, you reject the physical evidence, saying that it is a matter of belief no different than yours. (At least that’s how I read you; if I’m wrong let me know.)

The only difference in any of these cases is the length of time between present observations and past events.

Note: people have been wrong about their parentage; they have not been wrong about the actual race of their biological parents changing just prior to the child’s conception.