Hitchens's Razor

"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

Was Hitchens right?

@fmf said
"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

Was Hitchens right?

Yes, I believe he was right. I would point out however that proclaiming something to be true or untrue is a long way from proving it.

@mchill said
Yes, I believe he was right. I would point out however that proclaiming something to be true or untrue is a long way from proving it.

If it's religious faith, perhaps its adherents don't need to be trying to prove it and should, instead, be spending their time doing good works so that their faith doesn't become dead.

@fmf said
"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

Was Hitchens right?

Depends on how general you see it.

Some things go without proof: "If it rains the streets become wet." (Of course I am prepared to deliver ampel evidence)

@fmf said
If it's religious faith, perhaps its adherents don't need to be trying to prove it and should, instead, be spending their time doing good works so that their faith doesn't become dead.

Christianity is top-heavy with doctrines and dogmas, which was alien to both Greek paganism and the teachings of Jesus. Once you enter the arena of doctrines and dogmas, you are beholden to logical arguments and empirical proofs. A fatal step for a religion which was originally preached to illiterate fishermen, whores, and peasants, IMO.

@fmf said
"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

Was Hitchens right?

I’d back this up with David Hume’s observation that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs.

@moonbus said
I’d back this up with David Hume’s observation that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs.

This is an extraordinary claim: do you have any extraordinary evidence that it wasn't, in fact, Carl Sagan?

@fmf said
This is an extraordinary claim: do you have any extraordinary evidence that it wasn't, in fact, Carl Sagan?

Sagan was quoting Hume, perhaps cryptomnesiacally.

@moonbus said
Sagan was quoting Hume, perhaps cryptomnesiacally.

Perhaps Hume foresaw what Sagan was going to say but didn't want to explain how that was so.

@fmf said
Perhaps Hume foresaw what Sagan was going to say but didn't want to explain how that was so.

I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but it'll be in Hume's Dialogs Concerning Religion. Hume wrote before Darwin, so he couldn't really resolve the dilemma typically posed by Creationists, either random chance or intelligent design. It wasn't until Darwin proposed a naturalistic mechanism which preserves complexity without intelligence that a third option became conceptually tenable.

While I generally agree with Hitchens's claim, I think there is a caveat, because one might think that the positions are exactly equal and that the burden of proof is reciprocal. This is not so. The burden of proof is definitely on one side and not the other. I do not have to prove that werewolves, vampires, fairies, kobolds, elves, witches, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Great Pumpkin, the God of Abraham, Shiva, Prometheus, Osiris, and Ahura Mazda do not exist; the burden of proof is on those who claim that such things do exist. And the proofs had better be a whole lot better than 2,000-year old hearsay. So if someone tries to claim that one or more of the above exists without evidence, I don't need any counter-evidence to rebut the claim. Whereas, the lack of evidence that any of the above do not exist is not evidence that they do exist (@MetalBrain commits exactly this fallacy again and again in the Debates forum -- 'you can't prove it didn't happen' is his constant refrain for the most ludicrous conspiracy theories). So the burden of proof is not reciprocal, but otherwise, yes, I agree that claims about supernatural causality without evidence may be dismissed without counter-evidence.

@fmf said
"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

Was Hitchens right?

Yes, of course he was/is right.

However it should be remembered that certain evidence itself is not “proof”. For example the Bible talks about the evidence of creation and creator is written in the heavens and observed in the world around us. Whilst I as a theist personally opt to accept such evidence as being indicative of there being such a being, it is not “proof”.

@moonbus said
I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but it'll be in Hume's Dialogs Concerning Religion. Hume wrote before Darwin, so he couldn't really resolve the dilemma typically posed by Creationists, either random chance or intelligent design. It wasn't until Darwin proposed a naturalistic mechanism which preserves complexity without intelligence that a third option became conceptuall ...[text shortened]... that claims about supernatural causality without evidence may be dismissed without counter-evidence.

So hmm. For some of these claims, it's not that there's zero evidence, it's that the evidence is weak.

Can we still dismiss those without evidence?

@bigdogg said
So hmm. For some of these claims, it's not that there's zero evidence, it's that the evidence is weak.

Can we still dismiss those without evidence?

FMF's Razor

"What can be asserted with weak evidence can be dismissed with strong appeals to disbelief."

@bigdogg said
So hmm. For some of these claims, it's not that there's zero evidence, it's that the evidence is weak.

Can we still dismiss those without evidence?

So long as someone is merely expressing an opinion, for example that the Earth is only 6,000 yrs old or that he feels saved in Jesus, providing only very weak evidence, I won't bother to rebut him. He is entitled to his opinions. But as soon as he steps over the line from expressing an opinion to claiming he has universally valid objective truth, with scant evidence, I am entitled to dismiss him as a crank, without counter-evidence. Of course, I may engage him if I wish with counter-evidence, but the burden of proof is upon him, not me, to provide better evidence.

Now the question is, why do some people think weak evidence is compelling? Please refer to the other thread, why people believe in supernatural causality. The psychological factors involved in forming beliefs have nothing to do with the reasons one is likely to give if challenged later, after the beliefs have coalesced.

@moonbus said
So long as someone is merely expressing an opinion, for example that the Earth is only 6,000 yrs old or that he feels saved in Jesus, providing only very weak evidence, I won't bother to rebut him. He is entitled to his opinions. But as soon as he steps over the line from expressing an opinion to claiming he has universally valid objective truth, with scant evidence, I ...[text shortened]... to do with the reasons one is likely to give if challenged later, after the beliefs have coalesced.

Your last point is important. People do have a tendency to backfill reasoning and evidence, often without realizing they have done so. If you ask them how they came to that belief, they will present it in the 'acceptable' order - first evidence, then reason, then belief - even though that's not what really happened.

It does make me wonder - how much of us that have more 'academically correct' opinions are doing the same thing, except we just got lucky that there was solid evidence available to us after we came to our belief.

Much like the brain fills in the part of the field of view that is blocked by the optic nerve, I think it quickly rewrites the inner narrative of how we came to our belief to avoid the unflattering truth.