>No, of course I haven't read it. That entire paragraph is nonsense and nothing whatsoever to do with the matter in hand. It's just chaff thrown out to try and distract, and to feed your ego. If you've read the book I doubt that you've understood anything in it at all.
I mentioned it because it was part of my studies. You suggested that I know nothing about abductive reasoning. The paragraph was intended as evidence to the contrary. It was an answer. That's all. >Collin, your entire life is built on faith, which by definition is an assertion without evidence By whose definition? The separation of faith from reason (including faith from science or evidence, along with church from state -- they're all the same argument) is a rather modern concoction. The history has been covered well by respected historian William Cavanaugh in "The Myth of Religious Violence." What I'm saying here is that I reject the premise. That definition does not hold. It is an invention of the Rationalists in their attempt to unseat Christian thought from society. It was a political ploy. Again, it's history. (A most-eloquent summary here: http://www.leithart.com/2012/08/07/myth-of-religious-violence/ ) >because evidence has to be used scientifically, otherwise it is not evidence I run into this all the time. Jerry Coyne promotes the error constantly. That is, if something is not empirically verifiable then it doesn't count. Problem is, a lot of science is theoretical. Of course the response is that it's not really true science until it is verified. It's just a theory. The other problem is that much of science amounts to historical arguments. That is, "How did we get here?" is not empirically verifiable question. It involves abductive reasoning. Now, if you read Jerry Coyne's "Faith vs Fact" you'll quickly notice that he makes an arbitrary move to treat certain historical arguments as empirical and others as abductive. Abductive reasoning is used every day in criminal prosecution. The prosecutor presents a model that leads the reasonable person to a most likely conclusion. Models are another type of science. Some are explanatory (as in criminal prosecution) while the remainder serve other purposes. All are accepted as scientific and often do not produce empirical results. This requirement fails on three accounts. >It doesn't make any difference. If anything it is even more preposterous than being able to predict the future. Again, they weren't predicting the future. >You ought to find out what it means before you ask questions like that. You're just showing off your ignorance. >Irrelevant. Rhetorical flatulence intended to puff up your ego. If you'd explain yourself instead of being insulting ... >So what? >Very appropriate. It's a tautology. It goes to your challenge that these things are empty and only dumb true believers hang onto them. It is history. We treat it as such. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
