Why the divide between Science and Religion... (priest, ritual, moral)

[Escéptico]

Originally Posted by Willamena

What is "pretend rationale"? (for 2,000 points)

Old school kinda guy that I am, I always thought of 'evidence' as needing to be verifiable in some objective way. Not any more! In the new thinking, the sky's the limit. Claim to have had a weird experience, a nice feeling, or a psychotic episode? That's evidence! Any rationale for any proposition at all qualifies as evidence supporting that proposition, whether it's true or pretend or whatever.

[Willamena]

Originally Posted by Escéptico

Old school kinda guy that I am, I always thought of 'evidence' as needing to be verifiable in some objective way. Not any more! In the new thinking, the sky's the limit. Claim to have had a weird experience, a nice feeling, or a psychotic episode? That's evidence! Any rationale for any proposition at all qualifies as evidence supporting that proposition, whether it's true or pretend or whatever.

This "pretending" is not what is being argued, though. What I saw argued was faith that the data interpreted through senses is reliable.

"Empirical" means somethign capable of being confirmed or denied by the senses. Empirical evidence is gathered through the touch, sight, sound, taste, smell, or equipment to do the job for us, and recorded as data. A physical limitation like blindness requires an individual to take sighted things on faith. Empirical data is not independent of the observer any more than it records itself in notebooks.

Along with that intregral component of observer, it gains a quality of interpretation --is it 3 meters? or is it 3.011 meters? or 2.98 meters? Whatever is satisfactory for the purposes of the experiment is its value. Once an experiment is duplicated a few thousand times to the satisfaction of a few, it is widely accepted by others as something on which to develop their own experiments. They don't repeat the experiment again, but take it on faith. Multiply that by a thousand experimenters and you have a thousand more opportunities for inaccuracies to be duplicated, and for cultural and philosophical bias to predetermine results.

In the end, scientific objectivity boils down to a consensus of opinion; but even so, there is no evidence that is not evident "to us" (subjectively).

[Jayhawker Soule]

Originally Posted by Willamena

In the end, scientific objectivity boils down to a consensus of opinion; but even so, there is no evidence that is not evident "to us" (subjectively).

It has been suggested that science seeks not objectivity but intersubjective verifiability.

[mball1297]

Originally Posted by Willamena

This "pretending" is not what is being argued, though. What I saw argued was faith that the data interpreted through senses is reliable.

"Empirical" means somethign capable of being confirmed or denied by the senses. Empirical evidence is gathered through the touch, sight, sound, taste, smell, or equipment to do the job for us, and recorded as data. A physical limitation like blindness requires an individual to take sighted things on faith. Empirical data is not independent of the observer any more than it records itself in notebooks.

Along with that intregral component of observer, it gains a quality of interpretation --is it 3 meters? or is it 3.011 meters? or 2.98 meters? Whatever is satisfactory for the purposes of the experiment is its value. Once an experiment is duplicated a few thousand times to the satisfaction of a few, it is widely accepted by others as something on which to develop their own experiments. They don't repeat the experiment again, but take it on faith. Multiply that by a thousand experimenters and you have a thousand more opportunities for inaccuracies to be duplicated, and for cultural and philosophical bias to predetermine results.

In the end, scientific objectivity boils down to a consensus of opinion; but even so, there is no evidence that is not evident "to us" (subjectively).

Ah, the cavalry. Thank you for stating it as I couldn't. This is very well said, and I'll have to frubal you later after I frubal someone else.

[Escéptico]

Willamena,

I don't dispute the subjectivity of empirical observations. I never claimed that empirical data is independent of the observer.

What I did say was this:

"Empirical evidential inquiry is supposed to take all the incomplete, flawed, prejudiced observations and come up with a statistically viable model of a phenomenon. The more people who are involved with the researching, testing, and refining process in history, now, and in the future, the less any individual set of cognitive biases will affect the reliability of the outcome."

As Jay pointed out, this isn't really objectivity but 'intersubjective verifiability.'

[Willamena]

Originally Posted by Jay

It has been suggested that science seeks not objectivity but intersubjective verifiability.

That is my understanding, too.

[logician]

Originally Posted by Willamena

This "pretending" is not what is being argued, though. What I saw argued was faith that the data interpreted through senses is reliable.

"Empirical" means somethign capable of being confirmed or denied by the senses. Empirical evidence is gathered through the touch, sight, sound, taste, smell, or equipment to do the job for us, and recorded as data. A physical limitation like blindness requires an individual to take sighted things on faith. Empirical data is not independent of the observer any more than it records itself in notebooks.

Along with that intregral component of observer, it gains a quality of interpretation --is it 3 meters? or is it 3.011 meters? or 2.98 meters? Whatever is satisfactory for the purposes of the experiment is its value. Once an experiment is duplicated a few thousand times to the satisfaction of a few, it is widely accepted by others as something on which to develop their own experiments. They don't repeat the experiment again, but take it on faith. Multiply that by a thousand experimenters and you have a thousand more opportunities for inaccuracies to be duplicated, and for cultural and philosophical bias to predetermine results.

In the end, scientific objectivity boils down to a consensus of opinion; but even so, there is no evidence that is not evident "to us" (subjectively).

What is your point, that scientific evidence is inaccurate, or unreliable, because humans are involved?