Reg Prescott

Since it's such a sensitive subject, I'd like to make very clear at the outset that I take no stance on the factual issues here. Only the logic interests me. The first problem here is that the real world example you give us -- police and blacks -- does not seem to fit your own X-Y model of the opening paragraph. X is the undisputed fact that blacks are the most common victims of police brutality. Y is the putative fact that "blacks are inordinately violent" adduced by the police to justify the undisputed high rate of brutality. And we'll let Z be the hypothesis "the police are racist against blacks". (Obviously we're simplifying just a wee bit here into mutually exclusive categories) Now, since you say "Y is created by the very people arguing that X is justified", taken literally, this presupposes Y is indeed the case. After all Y has been "created". In other words, applying your X-Y model to the real world, it is true that blacks are inordinately violent, though true only in virtue of the police themselves making it a reality. It's a problem of the police's own creation. But your subsequent remarks seem to suggest you do NOT grant it (Y) is true that blacks are inordinately violent. You tell us Y might be considered "racist as sex". So, the first problem we need to clear up is, which of the following is being asserted?: (i) blacks are inordinately violent (i.e. Y) -- though the police are the cause of this (ii) It is not the case that blacks are inordinately violent (i.e. not Y). But Z is true: the police are racist (thus unfairly pick on blacks). While you ponder that, allow me to offer a tale of three countries. Presidential elections were recently held in the neighboring nations of Honestinia, Indoctrania, and Corruptoslavia. The newly elected presidents -- Cleanass, Orwellass, and Dirtyass, respectively -- each won 90% of all ballots. The ballots, though not the voting process itself, were inspected and confirmed by UN observers. The facts are not disputed. Press conferences were held in all three nations subsequent upon the results being announced. When asked to explain -- i.e., provide an explanatory justification for -- the unusually high degree of support, the three president-elects shrugged, "What you see is what you get. Ninety percent of the electorate turned out and voted for me". President Cleanass's character is beyond reproach. What you see is indeed what you get. Less well publicized is that President Orwellass has engaged in program of brainwashing his nation's citizens. It is indeed the case that 90% of the electorate turned out and cast their ballots for him, but ... for obvious zombie-esque reasons. President Dirtyass, meanwhile, being far too busy attending to his slush funds, simply left everything up to his henchmen, who threatened to murder anyone who showed up at the ballot station. On the big day for democracy, not surprisingly no one turned out to vote. The ballots counted and confirmed by the UN were all filled in by Dirtyass's own men. In summary, then, the fact X that each president received 90% of all ballots is undisputed. Three scenarios present themselves: (1) In Cleanass's case, the justification (Y) for X is true: 90% of the electorate did indeed turn out and cast him a vote. Everything is as it should be. (2) In Orwellass's case, the justification (Y) for X is also true. 90% of an albeit brainwashed electorate dutifully turned out and cast him a vote. All is not as it should be. Orwellass created his own justification. (3) In Dirtyass's case, Y is false. It is not true that the electorate turned out in record numbers to express their support. Dirtyass's justification does not hold water. The true explanation for Dirtyass's landslide victory is Z : the election was doctored. Back to the police and blacks, then... It is not disputed that blacks are the most common victims of police brutality (X). (1) corresponds to the justification cited by the police (Y: "blacks are inordinately violent") as being true, moreover none of the police's doing. (2) corresponds to the justification cited by the police as being true, but the fact that blacks are inordinately violent has been brought about by police action itself. (3) corresponds to the justification cited by the police as being false. It is not true that blacks are inordinately violent. The correct explanation for the undisputed fact X is that the police are brutal racists (Z). Oh wait, I almost forgot about the name you requested for the logical fallacy. Well, er, inasmuch as "logical fallacy" implies a flaw in one's reasoning, I don't see that any logical fallacy has been perpetrated. In case (1) the police are guilty of neither inappropriate behavior nor fallacious reasoning. Meanwhile in (3), the police justification is false. Any given police officer unaware of the real reason for the disproportionate brutality administered to blacks is simply ignorant, much like President Dirtyass who was far too preoccupied adding to his filthy lucre to pay much attention to how the election was conducted. Any dirty coppah who does know the real reason for X, but cites Y rather than Z, is lying. Lying isn't normally considered a flaw in one's reasoning, though. It's just kinda... dishonest. Oh yeah, and racism isn't very nice, either, though scarcely a logical fallacy. (2) is the tricky one. The police might be held accountable for misconduct, i.e., turning peaceful blacks into violent blacks, just as President Orwellass turned non-supporters into supporters, but surely not for fallacious reasoning. After all, everything they said is true. I suppose we might chastise them for not telling the whole truth, assuming they even know it, namely, "Yes, it's true blacks are uncommonly violent, but let's not pretend you don't know why this is". As a final thought, I often get asked by Taiwanese friends here, "How come you Brits won't allow Northern Ireland to be independent?", by which I think they mean, "Why don't you guys allow Northern Ireland to break away from the UK and unite with the Republic of Ireland?" The standard answer from London, of course, is "Because the vast majority of Northern Ireland residents do not want to break away from the UK". Any friends out there from Dublin may view the matter a little differently... "Yeah, yeah, but the vast majority are not real Irish people!!!!!"

Dude, this is truly pathetic. And you questioned my honesty? I've seen more intellectual integrity at a pirates convention.

I didn't suggest otherwise. Chalk up another strawman fallacy. Oh, and the topic is not science curing diseases. That one would be subsumed under "the fallacy of irrelevance", I suppose. Or a red herring -- of which there are two kinds, of course (a regular red herring and an absolute red herring).

Yeah, it's all just silly semantics. Everyone knows a claim that "knowledge is gained every time a model is updated" is really just another way of saying "it is not the case that knowledge is gained every time a model is updated".

I daresay you wouldn't. But is this based on anything more substantive than wishful thinking? Curing cancer and all that is just swell -- wish you'd hurry up (*cough cough*). Doesn't seem at all relevant to the issue at hand, though. No. Are you proposing a strawman to add your already prodigious collection of fallacies and contradictions? Well, if they were wrong, and the aether does not exist, then your claim: "Every time a model is updated it shows things have been learnt (Knowledge has been gained)" is false. Unless you plan to argue that we're more knowledgeable now: we know that the aether doesn't exist. I could give you a few more non-existent entities to add to your knowledge-of-nothing stockpile if you like. Sure beats hard work.

I'm just wondering why the word that I've highlighted in bold is in quotation marks. Did scientists have knowledge about the aether or not? I've got that dreadful feeling again that I'm about to be told "Don't be so obtuse! Everyone knows there are two kinds of knowledge!" You're the fellah who's telling us that science both does, and does not, claim knowledge. You may call it philosophical crap, similes, analogies... I call it a problem.

So now you're drawing a distinction between "absolute knowing" and plain old fashioned "knowing"? (I daren't even ask how to discriminate or request a citation to support this distinction). Leaving concerns about desperate ad hoc manoeuvring aside for the moment, I'm getting a terrible sense of deja vu here. Seems every time on these forums that I refute some silly claim like "There are no Xs" by producing a nice clean respectable X, I'm immediately told "How can you be so obtuse? Everyone knows there are two kinds of Xs".

Some problems with your remarks above: (1). You assume cumulative growth in science; another long-refuted yet frequently affirmed myth. Those familiar with the work of Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend as well as countless other philosophers and historians of science will need no reminding of revolutions in science -- episodes of massive conceptual change during which sizable chunks of "knowledge" (i.e. that which was erroneously believed to be knowledge) are jettisoned wholesale. Consider, for example, 19th century theories/models of aether which were repeatedly "updated" (your word) which should "show things have been learnt" and "knowledge has been gained" (your words again). We're now told the aether -- in its various manifestations -- does not exist. And there is no knowledge to be had of non-existent entities. Try asking Santa for this: https://www.amazon.com/Nineteenth-Century-Aether-Theories-Commonwealth-International/dp/1483125866/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542277341&sr=8-1&keywords=19th+century+aether (2). On page 3 of this thread you said the following: Seven pages ago, science, on your own account, does not claim to know; i.e., does not claim knowledge. Now you're telling us "knowledge has been gained". Well, which is it? Does science claim knowledge or not? (3). In another place I offered the following (to our fellow member Eise) for contemplation. I now offer it to you: I'm not sure where you stand on the scientific realism vs antirealism debate, or whether you take a stance at all. I would like to point out, though, that the kind of descriptivist theory of term/concept reference that you sketched for us has potentially catastrophic consequences for the scientific realist. Here's what you said again (previous page): So, on your account, if anything out there in nature satisfies the description "a horse like creature with a silvery skin, and one long white, spirally formed horn that lies its head in the lap of a virgin" then we can say that the term (or concept) "unicorn" refers. We have "latched onto" something real in nature. Conversely, if the description is not satisfied, then we say that the term "unicorn" fails to refer. It's an empty term/concept. It's a term/concept about nothing. We have failed to latch onto anything real. (And, of course, the same applies, mutatis mutandis, for the alternative description you offered: "an animal with one horn on its head"). Now, here's (roughly) what the scientific realist would like to say, and I'll take atoms as our example: "Though it's true that there have been many theories of atoms, from Dalton through Rutherford and Bohr, and many others, and it's true that Dalton and the others had some false beliefs about atoms -- they misdescribed atoms to a greater or lesser degree -- it is nonetheless true that these were all progressively better theories about the same type of entity. Dalton (or whoever we want to start with) latched onto something real in nature, and continuity of reference has been sustained through all subsequent theories of atoms". Now, given your own descriptivist theory of reference, the realist cannot say this. The description that Dalton and others offered of atoms -- the properties they attributed to atoms -- to a greater or lesser degree, are no longer countenanced by present day science. And as with your unicorn example, if the description is not satisfied, then we are forced to say that the term "(Dalton's) atom" fails to refer. It's an empty term/concept. Dalton and his successors failed to latch onto anything real. Rather than continuity of reference and a succession of better and better theories about the same thing, we have a succession of theories about nothing, with the possible exception of the current one. And it's the end of the world.

Ah, another nice little paradox you've identified. What would I do? I suppose I'd ask for a second opinion. Or maybe just have a drink. Reading through your stimulating posts lately on logical matters, Zosimus, especially regarding the pitfalls of over-reliance on inductive reasoning, a couple of thoughts came to mind. On page 4, in response to scurrilous allegations of linguistic tyranny on my part, I wrote the following: "The final tribunal on such definitional matters is not any supreme court judge, legislative body, lexicographers, or even yours truly, as DrP's charge suggests, but the language users themselves, including you, me, and all other adept speakers of English. If our own linguistic intuitions conflict with what Noah Webster says, so much the worse for Noah Webster. When it comes to logic, then, who calls the shots? Do we tell logic what to do? Or should we allow ourselves to suffer the depredations of marauding hordes of rapacious logical operators? I think it's a bit of both. Nelson Goodman has a wonderful insight you may be familiar with: If, for example, logic were to yield the inference "You'll have to stop drinking, smoking, and womanizing" I suppose I'd do the only sensible thing -- find a new logic. Yes, I never thought highly of Hitchens myself, though he certainly was a gifted debater. By that I mean he would interrupt incessantly, wave his arms around a lot, make lots of noise, thump the lectern, play to the audience, say things like "Shame on you, sir, for saying such a thing", "You're a disgrace!", "We'd still be swinging from trees if people like you had their way", and so forth. Sound familiar? Cogent ratiocination was barely discernible, but hey, he always got more votes than the anemic deadbeat at the other side of the stage who actually made sense. Oh, so you're the one. Well, just don't get carried away. It took me three years of hard work to reach this level of turpitude. Want any nice, shiny, magpie, green upvotes yourself? Just say the word.

A few words on the dispute over "appeal to authority"... It seems to me there's nothing fallacious in appealing to an authority or authorities on matters where they are indeed authoritative. It's something we all do when we consult a doctor for medical advice, a civil engineer for proposals to strengthen a bridge, a theologian on matters of scripture, or a biologist on biology. These people are experts, far more knowledgeable than the layperson, and their thoughts or suggestions have to be given due consideration. What would be fallacious, of course, is to make the inference from "she's an expert" to "she must be right". But surely few of us do this. Equally obviously, to cite a team of elderly shoemakers, say, as an authority on questions pertaining to subatomic physics would be... well, a load of old cobblers. Then again, surely none of us are this gormless. Far more pernicious, I find, is when people who are authorities in a particular area drift into a closely related area where their "expertise" is no longer nonpareil, indeed may even be little more worthy of belief than the layperson. The danger here is that -- unlike cobblers pontificating on Hilbert spaces -- they will be mistakenly held to be authorities on the subject matter in question by those who know no better. With respect to our own particular concerns here, two culprits who leap immediately to mind are Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. Presumably the two of them are indeed competent to speak on their respective bailiwicks. The problem, though, is that they have this nasty habit of speaking authoritatively on what I will call "metascientific" matters. That is, not the nitty-gritty of any particular scientific domain or theory, but rather, science as a whole: questions about science, as opposed to scientific questions. The kinds of metascientific questions I have in mind include those pertaining to the nature of science, evidence, confirmation, falsification, theories, demarcation, progress, scientific reasoning, explanation, truth, knowledge, scientific realism & antirealism, and so forth. Now, there are people who devote careers to examining the kinds of questions I've alluded to above: they include philosophers, historians and sociologists of science. These are the authorities in this case. I'm never quite sure whether Dawkins et al are just blissfully ignorant of the fact that such experts exist, or else know this but are too contemptuous to deem their research worthy. It's always hard for me to convince others of this, but Dawkins, Krauss, deGrasse Tyson, and others like them are not authorities on metascientific issues. Quite the contrary, these men -- if I may be blunt -- are little more than utterly clueless on such matters. I assume that Zosimus groans and squirms as much as I do listening to these men as one screaming absurdity is proclaimed after another, one long-discredited doctrine after the next upheld in succession, one false assertion piled upon another glaring inaccuracy or hyperbole. As I said, it's rare that anyone is convinced by my saying this, though I'm perfectly willing to put my $$$ where my gaping maw is. Perhaps in another thread someone might post a Youtube video or something for purposes of analysis. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you'd be as well listening to those cobblers on matters metascientific. Probably cheaper, too. P.S. I must express how gratifying it is to see several new additions to the thread (Zosimus, et pet, coffeesippin), all of whom enjoy a healthy negative reputation count -- generally an indicator around here that some heinous critical thinking has been perpetrated.

Tell them to stay there. I think I prefer lemurs.

I'm not religious, ALine. I don't believe in God. The reason for the verses of doggerel I quoted is that you seemed to be -- and still seem to be -- espousing the philosophy of Bishop Berkeley. The poetry captures his thought very nicely: esse est percipi - "to be is to be perceived". Not that I'm averse to a little atavism myself (or is it Ativan?), though I struggled high and low to find an answer to a fairly straightforward question in your latest post. Lemme try again: What do I see when there's a lemur standing in front of me? Oh wait, that was someone else that I couldn't get a straight answer from (Hi Sensei ) Yours is: "Is it your position that Uranus, inasmuch as it had never been observed, did not exist prior to its discovery?"

Then the proposition you expressed is false.

I don't use the term "absolute truth" (Zosimus does, though). To me propositions are simply true or false. We covered this a few pages ago. I agree these statements will no longer be true. But the propositions expressed by the statements will be. Zosimus calls such things "absolute truths". I call them true propositions. The propositions expressed by many statements are "indexed" to the time, place, person of utterance. For example the statement "I am hungry" if uttered by you right now expresses the proposition "the utterer [i.e. you] is hungry at this particular time". That proposition, if true now, will still be true tomorrow whether you're hungry or not.

Will all members who think they're brains in vats, or victims of a Cartesian demon, please raise their hands. Ok, leaving them aside, let us proceed... The position is known as radical skepticism: all we can have knowledge of is the contents of our own minds -- if that! I have no disproof. I don't think anyone else does either. It's just a position I don't think ought to be taken seriously. Do you? Still here? Since you don't believe you are a brain in a vat, we can start talking about knowledge of external reality. Presumably we can know about things like rocks and chairs and other inanimate objects like Robert Mitchum. Still with me? Perhaps after a few gin & tonics for Dutch courage we can muster the cojones to start talking about scientific knowledge....

Well, that's a start. What a relief too! By the way, do you regard "[They are] used by every programmer few, few hundred, or thousand times per day" to be a true statement? Why is everyone so terrified of truth??!! Aaarrrggghhhh!!!! Can you even imagine going through life without speaking of truth? Might make a good party game. First person who uses the word "true" or "truth" has to chug a beer. Betcha it'd be a very short game.

I see no need to go further till we sort out your opening shocker. Are you telling me that you go through life never using the words "true" or "truth". You've never said "that's true" or "that's not true"? Assuming you have used these words, then it seems you're confident in your own abilities to identify truth, at least in some cases.

You misrepresent me. What I said was (opening post): "... the denier of truth, on pain of inconsistency, must answer: "Zilch! Zero! Nada! Not a jot! Absolutely none!". What that implies is anyone who denies that science discovers truth cannot consistently maintain that science has provided us with any knowledge.

@ Sensei (post directly above) This is all very confused and contains misrepresentations of my position that I'll leave aside for now. I asked a simple question, which I'll repeat here: "What do YOU think I see when there's a bona fide lemur sitting in front of me? (My own answer, to repeat, is that I see a lemur). The closest I can find to an answer in your most recent reply is "interactions of photons with matter/antimatter/particles" and "Human eye is observing photons", in the case of watching TV. Is this your answer? When there's a lemur in front of me I see photons? I still say I see a lemur. I'm fairly sure I've never seen a photon in my life. Not so long ago people like yourself would have been telling we lemur lovers that what we actually see is corpuscles, not lemurs. Turns out -- according to received wisdom nowadays -- corpuscles don't exist. Whoops! What if 23rd century science decides photons don't exist either? Do you grant this as a possibility? If so, given that, on your account, all I see when I point my head towards a lemur with my eyes open is photons, we'd have to conclude that I'm seeing ... nothing! If photons go, lemurs go! Deforestation worries notwithstanding, seems to me lemurs have a better chance of making it to the 23rd century than the notoriously ephemeral postulates of physical theories. Now, photons may indeed be impinging on my nervous system, as you suggest, in virtue of which I am able to see that lemur. Assuming the reality of photons, without their striking my retina I would be unable to see that lemur. You continue, though, to merely give me an explanatory account, which may or may not be true, of how I am able to see the lemur. Nothing you have said poses any threat to my claim that what I see is a lemur. To be frank, the suggestion that what I'm seeing is photons is ... crazy! I like you already To explain all this satisfactorily would entail a lengthy excursion into human intentionality in general, and the intentionality of perception in particular. Perhaps some other time... For now, though, another question: What do you think my fellow lemur enthusiasts will say a few weeks from now if I ask them, "What do you see?" "Interactions of photons with matter/antimatter/particles" ?

No, a fact is either a state of affairs that obtains in reality (fact1), or a statement of such (fact2). Truth, as I've been defining it (the correspondence theory), is the relation of correspondence that holds between certain propositions, on the one hand, and states of affairs in the world, on the other. In other words, a relationship that holds between facts2 and facts1. A fact is not a relationship. Truth is. Exactly right. (Except "true fact" is a pleonasm). Not till you stop shouting.

The state of affairs that you are breathing is a fact (fact1 -- as defined previously). It is neither true nor false. "You are breathing" (note inverted commas) is a true statement, thus a fact (fact2 - as defined previously). So knowledge is always knowledge... until it is no longer knowledge? Sigh! Bartender!!!! Make it a large one!

Another confusion. What makes something true is not preponderance of evidence. Preponderance of evidence is what makes us confident that a particular proposition is true; it does not make the proposition true. There may be no evidence whatsoever to support a particular proposition. That proposition may nonetheless be true. Conversely, there may be a preponderance of evidence, yet the proposition that this evidence purportedly supports may be false. What makes a proposition true, as I've been defining truth here, is correspondence to facts.

Well, this is redolent of certain dubious claims made around here to the effect that knowledge is not always knowledge of that which is true, and that a "scientific truth" may be superseded by a new scientific truth. Now, "scientific truth" construed as a true proposition pertaining to scientific subject matter is entirely unobjectionable. On the other hand, the suggestion that some scientific truths may not be true is just plain silly. Edit P.S. - Beware of the ambiguity in the word "fact". 1. a state of affairs that obtains in reality 2. a statement of fact The former is extra-linguistic, thus not truth-evaluable (i.e., the predicates true and false do not apply). The latter is a linguistic entity. And if it is indeed a statement of fact, then it is true by definition. There are no untrue facts.

It really is quite astonishing how, on a site that purportedly emphasizes evidential support, one manifestly preposterous claim is advanced blithely after another. First of all, "certainty" is a psychological state, not a degree of objective epistemological warrant. A science fan may proclaim certainty, or near certainty, that such-and-such a theory is true. A Creationist, on the other hand, is unlikely to share this confidence. Certainty, then, or near certainty, is a pretty myopic guide to truth. The loonie bins are full of wackos who enjoy certainty in their having prevailed at the Battle of Waterloo. Well, perhaps we can appeal to some objective measure of confirmation in order to show that the former's near-certainty is justified and the latter's lack of confidence is misplaced. Can we show, for example, that the objective probability of evolutionary theory (whatever that is today) being true is 99%? Or 80%? 60%? 10%? In other words, if this can be shown, then the degree of subjective confidence -- the degree of belief -- a rational person ought to assign to the theory will be exactly the same as the objective probability of its being true. If anyone out there can do this, I'd like to see it. And don't forget to show your working.

Quite so. This would be the position of the instrumentalist, alluded to earlier in the thread. On this account, scientific theories, at least those which postulate unobservables, are not truth-evaluable at all. "Properly understood" theories are more like tools (i.e. instruments) or rules which we can use to derive statements about observable phenomena. Those derived statements may be assessed for truth/falsity; the theory itself cannot.