BS: Don't argue from ignorance

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Apr 14 - 06:45 PM

If Jesus were to go to Cambridge this weekend have himself crucified Friday and walk out of the morgue Sunday morning with Dr. Hawking et al as witnesses, there would be far fewer atheists in the UK.

I think maybe it would just be Steve Shaw and Musket and Musket would have doubts.

Don't bother nit-picking him on this one, Dave. It's typical Wacko shallow, useless gibberish. He thinks he's being funny, or witty, or something. Let the poor fellow be is my advice.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Apr 14 - 06:42 PM

The grammar was right. No comma before "and".

Please include me as a doubter.

BTW, the gospels are likely to have been written before 70AD - but not much. So those writing them would have been unborn (or infantile enough to have no useful recollection) before the crucifiction (emphasis on the "fiction") or so old by the time of writing that their memories would have been iffy.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 14 Apr 14 - 06:29 PM

I think your cat must be sleeping on the right side of your iPad DtG.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Apr 14 - 05:34 PM

In fact, I will take a leaf from Ed T and GfS's book. Here is something that will make more sense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nebe1zuEtbc

Enjoy.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Apr 14 - 05:31 PM

Sorry Jack, you are just not making sense any more. I read the whole thing again and it still says Steve Shaw and Musket and Musket. Can you save some for me please.

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 14 Apr 14 - 05:24 PM

How lazy do you have to be to be reading a 16 word sentence and stop at the 13th word?

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Apr 14 - 05:16 PM

Steve Shaw and Musket and Musket

So good they named him twice?

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 14 Apr 14 - 04:18 PM

Pete, the difference it peer review and _replication_ of the results.

If Jesus were to go to Cambridge this weekend have himself crucified Friday and walk out of the morgue Sunday morning with Dr. Hawking et al as witnesses, there would be far fewer atheists in the UK.

I think maybe it would just be Steve Shaw and Musket and Musket would have doubts.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 14 Apr 14 - 04:08 PM

So when you do experiments you verify the results with something other than observing....ie ,an eye witness report!             Maybe we can't trust scientists when we are told that something has been observed!         What was it Dawkins said......evolution has been observed, it,s just that there was no one there to see it...!          By contrast the New Testament ,which was mostly written within the lifetimes of those involved, reports numerous witnesses to the resurrection. That, of course will be gainsayed but deep time has certainly not been observed.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 14 Apr 14 - 12:55 PM

I really do fail to see how some folks missed the point of NDT's little talking points.

1. if you don't know something, just admit it... making up a story out of whole cloth to explain what you don't understand is NOT science and is most likely not true.

2. so called "eye witness" accounts are fallible and not acceptable "proof" in science. Only lawyers can assert otherwise! Which goes al long way to explaining why so many innocent people end up behind bars.. waiting for scientific evidence to free them.

The UFO part of his talk was to point out that the U stands for unidentified... which should be self-explanatory... but...

The phone chain was to illustrate that even in the second grade, we are taught that messages/stories get garbled in oral transmission. Which is very much the "folk process" in oral traditions.

What I liked best in his talk was how science deals with the unknown and you had better be comfortable with NOT having all the answers if you want to work in science.

The whole point of scientific method is to reach better understanding by asking better and better questions... because the answers lead to more questions.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 14 Apr 14 - 12:35 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 Apr 14 - 11:44 AM

Steve Shaw: "No, that is not what I think."

There you go again...trying to work without any tools!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Apr 14 - 07:26 AM

No, that is not what I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Musket
Date: 14 Apr 14 - 06:22 AM

There's less to you than meets the eye me old Goofus....

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 Apr 14 - 02:30 AM

"...good science is what has got us where we are" ~ Steve Shaw

At best, good science catalogs and chronicles HOW we got here, WHAT comprises 'Here', and can we explore more....because there's more to 'Here' than meets the eye.....ya' think??

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 08:18 PM

In general, you'll find that what I've said is what I intended to say, and I do try to not use big words, so as to make what I say comprehensible even to people of rather limited ability. I can get very bad mannered at times, but I don't, at least, have the bad manners to give people mental processing puzzles to solve before they can understand my posts.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: pdq
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 07:59 PM

"...good science is what has got us where we are"   ~   Steve Shaw


Er, are you sure that statement came out as positive as you intended???

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 07:51 PM

No-one is saying that an eye-witness is lying, or is unreliable, or is wishfully thinking, or is deluded. But, unless there is solid corroboration for their account, and not just from other eye-witnesses, we assume that they are all those things. That sounds rather unkind, but that is precisely how good science works. And good science is what has got us where we are.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Ed T
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 07:32 PM

"An eyewitness reports what he sees or thinks he sees. Once the report is filtered through another mind and confidently though incorrectly repeated, the information in the original report has decayed or been enhanced. Each repetition is almost sure to worsen the problem."

There goes all, or at least most, of the worlds holy books. Do you know what box you have just opened with that statement, pard?

;)

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 07:28 PM

An eyewitness reports what he sees or thinks he sees. Once the report is filtered through another mind and confidently though incorrectly repeated, the information in the original report has decayed or been enhanced. Each repetition is almost sure to worsen the problem.

In such circumstances, the original eyewitness report, accurate or not, is the only one of possible evidentiary interest. An eyewitness report to police is enough to prompt an investigation.

But Tyson is talking, of course, not about police reports but about science. Modern science relies on calibrated instruments and mathematics far more than on startled eyewitnesses to the unexpected.

Outside of science, unreliable eyewitness testimony is often all that one has to go on.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Ed T
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 07:16 PM

Don't argue from a sole purpose of arguing with someone, anyone.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 04:46 PM

Eye witness is a vital tool in the propagation of religious belief. Well done Tyson for highlighting its fatal deficiency as evidence, and pooh-pooh to the originator of this thread for failing to spot that it militates superbly against his belief system.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 04:29 PM

Steve (13 Apr 14 - 11:24 AM), that is the problem that you do not see the context. In this case, it said: "Your conclusion has no flaws beyond grammar."

Al, my point was that beliefs in rain gods etc. are often misinterpreted by people from modern societies who are used to different ways of thinking (not only believing!) and therefore of interpreting language (however exact and literal its translation).

Lighter, I think the example of wrong rumo(u)r does illustrate the effect well enough: at least one person in the chain must have got it wrong, and the more of them are involved, the higher the probability that it happens. Each is an ear witness to the previous one, processing the news by interpretation.

Interpreting news (in other words guesswork) can be a very useful skill - we just should not mistake it for certainty.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 03:50 PM

Tyson is right in principle, but he let the ad libs get a little out of hand.

*First-person* eyewitness testimony, while admittedly unreliable, is usually more worthy of investigation than is the nth-person earwitness testimony (i.e., rumor) that he suggests is almost identical.

That's why the cops take you seriously when you report seeing a burglary across the street, but not if you call to say you just heard about one from a friend of a friend.

Tyson has mixed apples and oranges, a serious reasoning no-no.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: BrendanB
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 03:37 PM

Yes Al, but I needed a noun and 'atrophy' is a verb. ( Oh Lord, I am wading in pedantry!)

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 03:23 PM

I would have gone for atrophy in that context.

Grishka - we are all applying tools of analysis to our surroundings - wouldn't you agree. beliefs in the rain god, or the latest outpouring from our universities is just a happenstance of birth,

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: BrendanB
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 03:05 PM

The use of 'who' as the subject of a sentence and 'whom' as the object seems entirely reasonable to me. Obviously language is dynamic and changes over time but I suspect that one man's idiosyncratic view of English will not be enough to cause the atrophication (is that a word?) of 'whom' in the forseeable future.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 11:33 AM

Though I do acknowledge my inconsistency in resorting to "whom" in the next phrase! I suppose my conditioning over the decades has led me to view that particular usage as slightly more elegant, though I'm still waiting for the hateful thing to die away for good. In spite of the fact that I think I've done no wrong, on reflection I suppose I should have redrafted the whole bloody thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 11:24 AM

Context? It seemed plain to me that you were telling me I should have used "whom" where I'd (correctly) used "who". Now, as I had done when I posted about it, I've reviewed the whole context and that's how it still seems to me. However, if you didn't mean it, you didn't mean it.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 07:16 AM

Al (12 Apr 14 - 05:29 PM), there are matters of science, and distinct matters of religious faith. It is an error, shared by adherents and critics, to think that religion was or is originally concerned with explaining the physical world.

Steve (12 Apr 14 - 07:17 PM), you have a gift of interpreting statements in the wrong context. My remark was not intended to correct your English. In fact I am aware - but not overly ashamed - of the fact that my own (non-native) English is far from perfect.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 04:44 AM

if you'll be a monkey's uncle
i'll be the dogs bollocks, my friend
and together we will walk the road
until we reach the end

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 13 Apr 14 - 04:26 AM

Well I'll be a monkey's uncle........

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Apr 14 - 08:01 PM

Thank you, pdq. I think my response, now deleted, was along the lines of telling Wacko that he had been insulting Joe as well as me. Why anyone would want to have deleted that, and not Jack's horrible sweary bit, is anyone's guess. Unless Wacko is the uncle of one of the mods, of course. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: pdq
Date: 12 Apr 14 - 07:44 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Joe Offer - PM
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 07:59 PM

So, Jack, what is the guy saying, and what do you think of what he's saying? Make a commitment here, not just a link. Even ignorant people can make links, thereby avoiding the pratfalls of arguing from ignorance.

-Joe Offer-

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Jack the Sailor - PM
Date: 12 Apr 14 - 04:25 PM

"Make a commitment here, not just a link."

Sure thing! since you asked!

Fuck on off to the corset shop you arrogant, ignorant, rude, lying piece of shit.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Apr 14 - 07:17 PM

Better write: whom no-one has ever seen, otherwise your statement is correct, and I have no reason to modify mine.

Sigh. As I've mentioned to more than one person before, it would be a very good idea to refrain from trying to correct my use of English. In the matter to hand you are wrong. There will come a time when the ludicrous "whom" will, thankfully, disappear. The sooner the better. In the meantime, be assured that my non-use of this horror was entirely intentional.

Readers may also care to note that my response to Wacko's childish, sweary post has been removed. God knows why.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 12 Apr 14 - 06:25 PM

I posted the link because I thought folks here might like it. I had no intention to argue about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Apr 14 - 05:29 PM

empiricism is only way of explaining stuff.
just like Freudian analysis is one way of explaining the human psyche.

they require an act of faith just as much as any other belief system.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 12 Apr 14 - 05:28 PM

Jack, are you sure your statement satisfies Joe's imperative? Are you talking about him or Tyson? In what way do you think Tyson has a point which coincides with your own view?

Steve,

In "enter your favourite explanation", it would be perfectly feasible to enter "that a supernatural being who breaks all the rules, who no-one has ever seen ...

Better write: whom no-one has ever seen, otherwise your statement is correct, and I have no reason to modify mine.

If we think we know a law of nature but suddenly find it broken, it proves nothing else than that the law does not hold. In my opinion, religion is something quite different, and those who confuse the two domains are called superstitious. Generally, the word "supernatural" does not make any sense in today's language, whereas "miracle narrative" (or "legend") is a specific genre of text with its specific code of meaning. We elaborated on this in other threads.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 12 Apr 14 - 04:25 PM

"Make a commitment here, not just a link."

Sure thing! since you asked!

Fuck on off to the corset shop you arrogant, ignorant, rude, lying piece of shit.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Apr 14 - 04:13 PM

The laws of nature, dear boy, the laws of nature. And I do not, unlike you, require a God Of The Gaps to formulate them. In other words, I do not need to try to explain the difficult stuff, though it's stuff we are closing in on, with the utterly and eternally inexplicable. Basically because, unlike you, I am neither mad nor utterly deluded. Do try not to bother me. You will find far more fertile ground with other targets. You really are a very slow learner, aren't you?

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 12 Apr 14 - 03:57 PM

"........and breaks all the rules......."
and what rules might they be, and who do you think made the rules?

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Apr 14 - 09:34 AM

"Since I know of no scientific explanation, it must be ..." (enter your favourite explanation, scientific or not) - a clear fallacy

Well I'm not clear whether you agree with the fellow or not (I won't fence-sit: I agree with everything he says in the clip). In "enter your favourite explanation", it would be perfectly feasible to enter "that a supernatural being who breaks all the rules, who no-one has ever seen and for whom we have no evidence created everything in the universe, in fact, the universe itself..." Interesting that the chap who started this thread, who is clearly a Tyson fan but who also espouses belief in God, didn't see the potential for that little trip-up.

So, Jack, what is the guy saying, and what do you think of what he's saying? Make a commitment here, not just a link. Even ignorant people can make links, thereby avoiding the pratfalls of arguing from ignorance.

Well said, by the way.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 12 Apr 14 - 05:44 AM

If I understood Tyson correctly, his "argumentation from ignorance" means something like "Since I know of no scientific explanation, it must be ..." (enter your favourite explanation, scientific or not) - a clear fallacy. (In contrast, "I guess ..." is perfectly permissible.)

The notion "Unidentified Flying Object" consists of three words; the first one becomingly admitting some ignorance, whereas the other two do make assumptions: a) the sighting is caused by light coming directly from an object, and b) the object is "flying", i.e. solid and propelled by a force beyond mere gravity. In other words, most "UFO" sightings are not sightings of FOs at all.

"People are so stupid; they always believe they are right, and fail to realize that in fact I am the one who is right!"

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 12 Apr 14 - 02:54 AM

If you weren't allowed to argue from ignorance on these threads, there would be nobody to rip the piss out of.

Pointing and laughing. You know it makes sense.





I don't need to watch the video. I have taken a leaf out of the book of many here and am comfortable with my preconception instead. Far better than learning.

;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Apr 14 - 08:29 PM

Don't argue from ignorance. A thread started by Wacko (wot a novelty!) Sorry, I can't read on. I have to go to the corset shop now as I've just split mine.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Apr 14 - 06:08 PM

Oh, look who's here.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 11 Apr 14 - 04:04 PM

having just watched the video, somehow I lost the link between seeing a UFO, and forming a non evidenced conviction of what it was, and the telephone game [aka Chinese whispers]. seem like inaccurate parallels [ if that was the intention]

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 11 Apr 14 - 09:08 AM

I think arguing about this topic without having watched the video is a pretty tangible example of arguing from ignorance.

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Apr 14 - 08:08 AM

BTW, IGNORance has its roots in 'Ignore'. If one IGNORES facts, then he is 'ignorant'....

May have the same stem, GfS, but ignorance has nothing to do with ignore here. In this context, ignorance is lack of knowledge.

ignorance

Pronunciation: /ˈɪgn(ə)r(ə)ns

noun

Lack of knowledge or information: he acted in ignorance of basic procedures
   
Origin

Middle English: via Old French from Latin ignorantia, from ignorant- 'not knowing' (see ignorant).

Hope this helps with your ignorance of the language :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Don't argue from ignorance
From: gnu
Date: 11 Apr 14 - 06:35 AM

Arguing about argument. Surely... nay, possibly... the acme of 'below the line'.