I think the main problem on the Theory of Evolution question lies in the wording. By mentioning the word "true" instead of "probable" they are asking about an absolute truth claim. No scientific theory, no matter how much evidence there is for it, is absolute proof of anything.

Yeah took the test twice. First time answered honestly and found that the wording of the questions led you to contradict yourself.

Second time around decided to answer false to every question except the one on evolution and ended up as a guru like Adrian...go figure??

No thought involved in application to the questions..... so yeah....no stetching of ones minds and belief systems......... pretty slapped up imho

(August 9, 2010 at 10:21 pm)Tiberius Wrote: It is not a fallacy, mainly because I was using it in a way to show you that your statement *could* be wrong. A "what if" fallacy takes the form "What if X, then you must do Y". Never did I insinuate that we shouldn't disbelieve evolution because "what if the universe was made last thursday".

The Last Thursday argument has been used by philosophers before. It isn't new. Unless you can disprove it via a logical argument, your whining about logical fallacies that I haven't even committed are just going to annoy me.

I already refuted it via a logical argument. It's irrational.

Let's go ahead with your basic 'the universe appeared last Thursday'. I still have irrevocable proof that evolution is true because evolution still works. I can duplicate the experiment. It's part of the basic framework of reality. If reality were a computer program, evolution is the code used to write it, thus it exists even if the first time the program were run happens to be today. Using the 'universe appeared last Thursday' argument is completely irrational because it is, as I pointed out, a complete bullshit hypothetical along the same lines as the 'philosophical hypothetical' that you are all just figments of my imagination.

If you are going to entertain the 'universe appeared last Thursday' as a valid and 'logical' idea, then you have absolutely no standing to say Creationists are illogical because their claim is just as logical an idea as the universe appeared last Thursday. In fact, it's the same exact logic, which is why I called you a fundie. You entertain the notion the universe appeared last Thursday, their notion is the universe was created last Thursday and they use the exact same explanation for why everything appears the way it does as your 'hypothetical'. It's irrational.

To even entertain the Omphalos hypothesis you must disregard several aspects of reality. Start with light takes time to travel, so if the universe suddenly appeared last Thursday we would not see any stars. It takes over minutes for the light from the sun to reach the earth. Seriously, you are using as your 'logical' argument something that is often used as satire. It fails the basic 'why' test. 'Why' create false memories?

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(August 10, 2010 at 4:03 am)leo-rcc Wrote: I think the main problem on the Theory of Evolution question lies in the wording. By mentioning the word "true" instead of "probable" they are asking about an absolute truth claim. No scientific theory, no matter how much evidence there is for it, is absolute proof of anything.

They used the statement 'essentially true'. As in, do you assume this is generally correct?

They played a semantic game by making two questions that asked different things and then claimed the answers were equivalent.

(August 10, 2010 at 4:03 am)leo-rcc Wrote: I think the main problem on the Theory of Evolution question lies in the wording. By mentioning the word "true" instead of "probable" they are asking about an absolute truth claim. No scientific theory, no matter how much evidence there is for it, is absolute proof of anything.

I agree completely. I chose "false" on the "Is evolution essentially true?" question because the wording sounded like it was asking if I absolutely knew it was true. Then I ran into an apparent "logical contradiction" on the next question when I said that it was also false that an inner conviction is justification for a belief... once again for the same reason - no absolute proof for the truth of that question, hence why I selected "false" (What I really wanted was a "don't know" option).

Still, great game... very clever. Gotta no read into the wording too much sometimes, I'm always doing that.

It warns in the instructions about how the interpretation of the wording can't be 100% accurate, obviously.

(August 10, 2010 at 8:35 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Still, great game... very clever. Gotta no read into the wording too much sometimes, I'm always doing that.

It warns in the instructions about how the interpretation of the wording can't be 100% accurate, obviously.

(August 10, 2010 at 8:04 am)In This Mind Wrote: Let's go ahead with your basic 'the universe appeared last Thursday'. I still have irrevocable proof that evolution is true because evolution still works. I can duplicate the experiment. It's part of the basic framework of reality. If reality were a computer program, evolution is the code used to write it, thus it exists even if the first time the program were run happens to be today. Using the 'universe appeared last Thursday' argument is completely irrational because it is, as I pointed out, a complete bullshit hypothetical along the same lines as the 'philosophical hypothetical' that you are all just figments of my imagination.

Yes, you can duplicate the experiment, but the point of the Last Thursday argument is to show that you have no way of telling the difference between a universe that is 13.7 billion years old, and a universe that is only X old (where X is a specific time) but has been made to look 13.7 billion years old.

So, from this we can establish that even though you can do the experiment, as soon as you have done it, you have no way of telling whether the experiment you just did actually took place, or whether the universe had been created to make you think the experiment had just taken place. At any particular moment in what we perceive as time, the universe could have been created with everything set up for that moment, all memories in place, etc.

Quote:If you are going to entertain the 'universe appeared last Thursday' as a valid and 'logical' idea, then you have absolutely no standing to say Creationists are illogical because their claim is just as logical an idea as the universe appeared last Thursday. In fact, it's the same exact logic, which is why I called you a fundie. You entertain the notion the universe appeared last Thursday, their notion is the universe was created last Thursday and they use the exact same explanation for why everything appears the way it does as your 'hypothetical'. It's irrational.

No, and I don't make the claim that creationists are illogical in their claim, unless they base it on other logical fallacies (like claiming "the Bible says the Earth is 6,000 years old, therefore the Earth is 6,000 years old"). The arguments are completely different if this is the case.

In fact, the Last Thursday argument was created in order to show creationists who make the claim that the Earth "could be" 6,000 years old, that their argument also works for any other period of time. It nulls their argument by showing that what their argument logically entails is a generalisation. In other words, you cannot use their argument to show that the Earth could be 6,000 years old without also conceding that it could be older, or younger. The argument holds because of this. It is logically valid.

Quoting from the article on Last Thursdayism at RationalWiki.

Quote:There is no logical way to demonstrate "Last Thursdayism" is false. Equally there is no logical way to demonstrate that a (non-interventionist) god does not exist, or that we are not part of a complex computer simulation. In all cases we must ask what evidence exists to show that these suppositions may be true. If there is none then we are justified in ignoring them.

As such, I do not believe in the Last Thursday hypothesis as a reality, since there isn't any evidence from my perspective to support it. However, this doesn't mean it can't be true. The claim is unfalsifiable, as is any claim to the age of "existence", in terms of philosophical proofs.

Quote:To even entertain the Omphalos hypothesis you must disregard several aspects of reality. Start with light takes time to travel, so if the universe suddenly appeared last Thursday we would not see any stars. It takes over minutes for the light from the sun to reach the earth.

Yes, but then the Last Thursdayism argument states that the universe was created in it's present state (i.e. with light on its way from stars, memories in place, etc). This isn't a valid objection to Last Thursdayism; only a valid objection to the Omphalos hypothesis if we are assuming the "creator" isn't dishonest. If we assume a dishonest "creator" then the position of light is irrelevant.

Quote:Seriously, you are using as your 'logical' argument something that is often used as satire. It fails the basic 'why' test. 'Why' create false memories?

I'm using it as a logical argument because technically speaking it is logical. It is an unfalsifiable claim. It cannot be proven false using logic.

Yes, it is used as satire as I mentioned above, when using it towards creationists who make the same argument, but it is only used as satire to show that you can insert any number into the argument and it still works. This doesn't invalidate the argument; it only makes it a generalization.

As for "Why create false memories?", that question is as irrelevant as the question about light. It can be answered simply by assuming the "creator" is dishonest and created it that way. It doesn't change the logic of the argument at all. The details behind the "why" aren't the issue here, but whether such an event *could* have happened. Since the argument is unfalsifiable, it could indeed have happened.

I feel I need to state this again though: Just because something could have happened, doesn't mean we should believe it did, or that it did happen. Could means could. It's a possibility, and it can't be ignored in philosophy, else you end up with a biased worldview, as the test exposed.

Build me a computer and a boat. You may only use wood, nails, and glue.

There was this fundie I used to debate on another board. I asked her to explain why homosexuality was harmful without using the bible. She responded with 'well prove evolution is true without using science'.

God is a philosophy.
Evolution is science.

I don't need to 'philosophically' prove evolution. I've already scientifically proved it.

You hit upon the crux of the matter in your bullshit, I'll give you credit there.

Quote:I'm using it as a logical argument because technically speaking it is logical. It is an unfalsifiable claim. It cannot be proven false using logic.

You also demonstrated why it is bullshit.

Then why is scientific method and evidential standards constantly applied by atheists (not all) to prove/disprove concepts of God? If I said I don't need to scientifically prove God, I've already done it philosophically do you know how many atheists would be up my ass about that?

Quote:I've already done it philosophically do you know how many atheists would be up my ass about that?

No,nor is it relevant to me.

I reject the neo Platonist approach,insisting that logic without evidence does not guarantee truth. My position is that God cannot be argued into or out of existence. His existence can only be proved or falsified. So far, no one has managed to do either.Consequently, I assert only 'I do not believe' [due to lack of evidence].

Part of me hopes I'm wrong, and that God could not possibly be the cruel cunt many Christians worship.

(August 14, 2010 at 9:04 pm)In This Mind Wrote: I don't need to 'philosophically' prove evolution. I've already scientifically proved it.

You hit upon the crux of the matter in your bullshit, I'll give you credit there.

Quote:I'm using it as a logical argument because technically speaking it is logical. It is an unfalsifiable claim. It cannot be proven false using logic.

You also demonstrated why it is bullshit.

See: Philosophy_of_science.

All arguments (in any field) can be reduced down to logical based assertions and assumptions. The field for studying logic is philosophy. As I've stated in previous threads, scientific proof doesn't exist. This claim of mine is supported by essays written by the people at talk.origins: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/sciproof.html as well as every philosopher of science (and scientists in general).

Science doesn't prove things because the underlying philosophy of empiricism works on an assumption: that reality is material in nature, and we can learn things from observing it. There is no way of confirming this assumption, and so an assumption it remains. Any argument based off an assumption cannot be said to be "truth", since if the assumption is wrong, the argument is wrong (and so is not true), which given the definitions of the words, cannot be possible. What is true is true, and can't be false.

The question in the quiz did not ask about scientific proof. It asked about "truth". Truth is a logical concept, and in the realm of philosophy, not science. In terms of science, the theory of evolution is the best explanation of the current evidence. If that evidence changes, the theory will change. It will never be said in science that "evolution is true" in the same context that "true" is given in philosophy.

Philosophical quiz...philosophical answers.