Got to love this article. It certainly is written by someone from a theoretical science background working on another Phd.
Basically, what it is saying is that the way we work out theories is flawed because we don’t have all the data. What a surprise. However, that is what theories are for they allow people to guess what the missing data is and then experiment until they disprove the theory. A theory is never proved 100% although most are accepted as proven by experiments scientists like the work on them to enhance the theory.
In many cases people have extrapolated the missing data from observation and managed to fill in the blanks. In others they have added the missing data into a big X and allocated a single number to it. We have no idea what each unit is or it’s proportion and the theories still hold sound so do we really care in many areas. Eventually we will work it out more clearly as we learn more about the process.
So the old method we were taught in school, which was to watch what was going on, work out a theory and test it, repeat until it fails or we can explain what is going on seems to still be the way to go. It’s the scientific method. Or to put in a scientific way ‘Based on observations, scientists build models that, in turn, are used to make predictions. To the extent that the predictions are successful, scientists conclude that their models are accurate.’ Sounds pretty much like science from the first time someone looked at something and tried to explain why it happened to another.
It’s a plain fact that you don’t know what you don’t know but observation and testing helps us learn more of what we didn’t know which in turn helps us learn more about that and related areas. All held together by theories and experimentation.
Maybe we should be showing these techniques to the Climate Change crowds.
However, that is what theories are for they allow people to guess what the missing data is and then experiment until they disprove the theory. A theory is never proved 100% although most are accepted as proven by experiments scientists like the work on them to enhance the theory.
That’s right. In science there is hypothesis, based on data which may be fragmented but indicative. One looks at that data, even though one’s personal world view says otherwise. Such as with the plethora of data on Christianity.
One looks through it all, especially the works by major authorities of the time and hypothesize by joining the dots. What can one do with someone who looks at the evidence and says [don't laugh now]: “That’s not evidence.” ?
What that person means is that he doesn’t like it, therefore he will interpret it as not being evidence. But as you say, Lord T, being for the scientific method, anything pertaining to a particular hypothesis is legitimately data and therefore you’d have to consider it in detail, otherwise that would not be scientific.
Christianity is one of those that does not respond well to any kind of scientific scrutiny at all. Science needs the data to be reproducable, preferably in a controlled environment and not based on unverifyable claims. Remember when that South Korean claimed he had cloned something and yet his certified data was unable to be reproduced he was pilloried.
Remember it is not just the data that is considered it is also how the data was collected and stored.
What you call evidence is a collection of words, modified over centuries by biased people based on the memories of men several years after the events. Only those with a bias to begin with would accept that as fact and base a theory on it.
Christianity is one of those that does not respond well to any kind of scientific scrutiny at all.
Actually, that’s wrong form the start. The data is quite reproducable and there is a wealth of commentary by learned people over the centuries, which is the scientific method. All professions have their journals and that’s no different. People like Bede spent a lifetime studying the subject so one could say he was an expert, just as in science.
In Science, as in Medicine, it is the learned opinions which carry the day and that is the case with Christianity. Many of those have been listed in the six part series in my sidebar.
Documents are documents if they’re:
1. Written down;
2. Pertain to the subject in hand, in the opinion of the experts.
In any scientific journal or in any court of law, that would be so. They are then called evidence. There is good evidence and bad evidence. for example, Q is disputed but no one disputes Mark and it’s fairly certain now the story over him.
Take out the word Christianity, which is a word which blinds people with intensely negative thoughts and makes them say things they ordinarily wouldn’t – take it out and let’s call it “the existence of dark matter” – untestable and yet spoken of as a reality. This is considered evidence and the opinions of all the most learned cosmologists is listened to in this respect.
It is no different. The problem is not that it is evidence but that psychological prejudices come into it instead of scientific rationale. Being of a scientific bent, I prefer to look at the evidence and study it before I condemn it.
Fine. Next Easter we will conduct an experiment which is generally accepted as the definitive proof and, from my understanding, if disproven would cause many to doubt. It would even convince me to make that leap if you make it.
I’ll supply the testing equipment to check death and not coma. After all death has been diagnosed for thousands of years as many coffins will testify.
The rest of it is all based on heresay and repeated down the years, written down, modified and passed on by people with an axe to grind. At this stage no one can be cross examined and we now that many times in a court what is obvious suddenly becomes doubtful.
IThere is no other subject where people accept evidence from 2000 years ago as gospel (pun intended) without some sort of verification from outside the clique.
Does that mean you will leave me your Mac?
I thought you hated those things?
Never said that. They are simply tools like everything else and each have a niche.
But I was going to use it as target practice. It’s about the same size as a GATSO.