Faith?

[Ryft]

You completely twist my words. This is basic principle of burden of proof. If someone does not meet the burden of proof, then you are justified in not accepting their claims until they do. The Dragon in the Garage story is an example to show how people avoid burden of proof by making claims that protect them from scientific inquiry. This is basic logic. I find it laughable you disagree with this since you're such a self proclaimed philosopher.

Then perhaps you were twisting your own words, Eilonnwy? Because not accepting the claim P ("there is a dragon") is very different from asserting the claim ¬P ("there is not a dragon"). The former does not commit the fallacy, but the latter certainly does and the latter is what you said: "And you would be justified in saying there really isn't a dragon in my garage because you can't verify for yourself and you know I could also be lying or delusional" (emphasis added).

Still laughable?

Argument ad ignorantiam deals with when you disbelieve something because you can't imagine it's possibly true. For instance when people refuse to believe the Big Bang because they can't imagine the universe came into being from an explosion.

Incorrect. That refers to the argument from incredulity which is related to, but different from, the ad ignorantiam fallacy. The 'incredulity' fallacy is committed when you think a lack of evidence for P counts in favour of Q, while the 'ad ignorantiam' fallacy is committed when you think a lack of evidence for P counts in favour of ¬P.

... by the brilliant and sadly late Carl Sagan ...

I really... really... miss him... *sniffle*... and Dawkins makes me miss Sagan even more.

Maybe I'll take up Arcanus's challenge ...

Yes!!

... [but] to be perfectly honest, I have too much on my plate right now to add another writing project to my schedule.

...oh. Damnit.

---

Arcanus seems to think the burden of proof is with athiests, when it comes to the existance (or not) of God. I believe the reverse is true.

And you would be incorrect, for Arcanus thinks nothing of the sort. The burden of proof is not determined by a class of people; in other words, it does not matter whether you are a 'theist' or an 'atheist'. The burden of proof is shouldered by whoever makes a claim—including atheists, and not exclusively theists. If one makes a claim, then one shoulders the burden proving the claim. It does not matter if you are a theist or an atheist. For example, an atheist can claim that "God does not exist" and such would shoulder the burden of proof.

Please, Arcanus, define for me exactly what this God thing is. I have heard many contradictory things said about it.

When you heard these contradictory things said about God, did you bother to find out if they were talking about the same deity? I ask because, as you should know, it is "contradictory" only if they are referring to the same deity (e.g., the statements "Terry is a girl" and "Terry is not a girl" are contradictory only if they are referring to the same person). If you did determine that they are talking about the same deity, then did you bother to find out if they knew what they were talking about? There is no shortage of people who talk about things they know little or nothing about (e.g., a person might say that evolution teaches we evolved from monkeys, but their saying so doesn't mean it is so). In short, I am asking you to demonstrate that you have practiced intellectual responsibility.

If you have time, explain why the attributes you assign it can't be natural (and give examples).

It follows from the very definition of natural, a term which "refers to phenomena of the physical world ... from the subatomic to the cosmic." If God is the creator of the physical universe then, necessarily (i.e., by definition), he is not part of the physical universe. If he is not part of the physical universe then, necessarily, physical phenomena cannot describe him. (This is why practically all terms used to describe his nature are ultimately apophatic; e.g., eternal means "not temporal").

[Eilonnwy]

Arcanus, by your reasoning we cannot say pink unicorns don't exist.

If you dismiss a claim because of ignorance of the evidence, yes you're are committing the fallacy. But it's far different if you search for evidence where there should be and find nothing. You can't hold everything as true or possible just because solid evidence for it's non-existence isn't there. There is that whole saying that absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence. I believe that's generally true with one huge caveat. If you search for evidence where there most certainly should be evidence, based on your claim, and then don't find any, I think you're justified in saying something doesn't exist, as Sagan explained in his Dragon analogy. Of course, you would be committing the fallacy if evidence did come around and you ignored it. A true skeptic is willing to reconsider when better evidence comes along.

It's a fine line, I agree, but a line nonetheless.

[Ryft]

Arcanus, by your reasoning we cannot say pink unicorns don't exist.

Exactly. This is what it means to be logical or rational, Eilonnwy. You have to look at how the statement ¬P is being supported. A lack of evidence for P ("there are pink unicorns") does not validly establish ¬P ("there are not pink unicorns"), which is precisely what that maxim means: "absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence." A lack of evidence for P is a good reason to reject P, but is a bad reason to assert ¬P.

Does that mean we should "hold everything as true or possible just because solid evidence for it's non-existence isn't there"? No, for that would simply be the reverse of the very same fallacy! A lack of evidence for ¬P does not establish P, either!

If you search for evidence where there most certainly should be evidence, based on your claim, and then don't find any, I think you're justified in saying something doesn't exist

True. That is establishing evidence of absence (¬P). Now let's look at Sagan's dragon, as per your post (Msg. #22). Tell me what evidence one should expect, given a dragon that is invisible, floating, and transcendent?

[Eilonnwy]

True. That is establishing evidence of absence (¬P). Now let's look at Sagan's dragon, as per your post (Msg. #22). Tell me what evidence one should expect, given a dragon that is invisible, floating, and transcendent?

I believe Sagan's own words are needed to clarify what I am saying:

The Dragon in my Garage

---

"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"

Suppose (I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle--but no dragon.

"Where's the dragon?" you ask.

"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.

"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floates in the air."

Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."

You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."

And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.

The only thing you've really learned from my insistence that there's a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You'd wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind. But then, why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I've seriously underestimated human fallibility.

Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don't outright reject the notion that there's a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold. Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you're prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you. Surely it's unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative-- merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of "not proved."

Imagine that things had gone otherwise. The dragon is invisible, all right, but footprints are being made in the flour as you watch. Your infrared detector reads off-scale. The spray paint reveals a jagged crest bobbing in the air before you. No matter how skeptical you might have been about the existence of dragons--to say nothing about invisible ones--you must now acknowledge that there's something here, and that in a preliminary way it's consistent with an invisible, fire-breathing dragon.

Now another scenario: Suppose it's not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you're pretty sure don't know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages--but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we're disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I'd rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren't myths at all.

Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they're never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon's fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such "evidence"--no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it--is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.

---

[Ryft]

First, if you will notice, Sagan does not address my question. Had an answer to my question existed, I would have confronted it. That is why I posed my question to you in the first place. "Tell me what evidence one should expect, given a dragon that is invisible, floating, and transcendent?"

Second, notice too that Sagan supports my position. While you proposed that one would be "justified in saying there really isn't a dragon" based on the absence of evidence for it—which I said is fallacious rather than justified—Sagan writes that "the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis." There is your fallacious assertion of ¬P ("there really is not a dragon") on the one hand, and Sagan's sensible rejection of P on the other.

As I said previously (Msg. #61), not accepting the claim P (the position Sagan espoused) is very different from asserting the claim ¬P (the position you espoused). The former does not commit the fallacy, but the latter certainly does. The difference between your position and his can be seen in the following: while he wondered what the difference is "between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all," you went the whole way to assert there is no difference and the dragon does not exist. Sagan saw in the circumstance reason to formulate a question, while you thought one could formulate an answer.

Man, I really miss Carl Sagan.

[Eilonnwy]

And you continuously miss the point.

First, if you will notice, Sagan does not address my question. Had an answer to my question existed, I would have confronted it. That is why I posed my question to you in the first place. "Tell me what evidence one should expect, given a dragon that is invisible, floating, and transcendent?"

None, since the Dragon has been defined out of science. That's the point. The story of the dragon is part of a larger book that deals with these evasions in evidence to prop up an unsupported position.

Second, notice too that Sagan supports my position. While you proposed that one would be "justified in saying there really isn't a dragon" based on the absence of evidence for it—which I said is fallacious rather than justified—Sagan writes that "the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis." There is your fallacious assertion of ¬P ("there really is not a dragon") on the one hand, and Sagan's sensible rejection of P on the other.

As I said previously (Msg. #61), not accepting the claim P (the position Sagan espoused) is very different from asserting the claim ¬P (the position you espoused). The former does not commit the fallacy, but the latter certainly does. The difference between your position and his can be seen in the following: while he wondered what the difference is "between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all," you went the whole way to assert there is no difference and the dragon does not exist. Sagan saw in the circumstance reason to formulate a question, while you thought one could formulate an answer.

Man, I really miss Carl Sagan.

I do not think it unreasonable in the slightest to say something probably doesn't exist when it's been defined out of scientific inquiry and every attempt has been made to prove it's existence, as long as you are willing to change your mind should better evidence come around. That is an entirely reasonable stance to take, and there's nothing fallacious about it. In some cases, absence of evidence DOES mean evidence in absence.

You're parsing words to stretch this into a fallacy that it is not.

As I quoted Copi for a reason, and I'll quote it again:

A qualification should be made at this point. In some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence despite searching, as positive evidence towards its non-occurrence.

Maybe the problem is you're stuck in your BS philosophical reasoning, and I'm talking about the real world here.

[Ryft]

First, if you will notice, Sagan does not address my question. Had an answer to my question existed, I would have confronted it. That is why I posed my question to you in the first place. "Tell me what evidence one should expect, given a dragon that is invisible, floating, and transcendent?"

None, since the Dragon has been defined out of science. That's the point.

Seriously? So if there is no empirical evidence to be had, one should not expect any evidence at all? Sounds like you are saying, "If it's not empirical, then it's not evidence"—a view which would harbor several horrific problems, but one you are nevertheless entitled to.

I do not think it unreasonable in the slightest to say something probably doesn't exist when ...

Me neither. However, that is not what you said, Eilonnwy. The switch you just pulled here is blatant. If I put it to the other members of this site, I'm sure they would be able to detect what the difference is between (i) "there really is not a dragon" and (ii) "there probably is not a dragon." The former is what you had said. The former is what commits the fallacy. The former is what Sagan neither does nor would support. To conclude ¬P ("there really is not a dragon") based on the lack of evidence for P ("there is a dragon") commits the ad ignorantiam fallacy. Q.E.D.

If you want to change your statement and substitute "really" with "probably" then please, by all means, do so. But be honest about it. All right? It is intellectually dishonest to not only change your statement without comment but also try and accuse me of "parsing words to stretch this into a fallacy."

Maybe the problem is you're stuck in your BS philosophical reasoning, and I'm talking about the real world here.

As the evidence seems to indicate, the bullshit is not coming from my philosophical reasoning.

[leo-rcc]

Eilonnwy, Arcanus has a point. Carl Sagan's point was about probability, and how the negative claim cannot be proven no matter how ridiculous the claim may be.

That is exactly the problem with these god claims.

This god is supposedly outside of our time and space.
There is no method known to test the existence of this god.
All previous tests and their results are being reasoned away with pretty much the same arguments as the dragon analogy.

So what is the difference between an untestable and non-temporal god and a non-existent god?

[Ryft]

That is exactly the problem with these God claims ... There is no method known to test the existence of this God.

A minor correction, so that the reasoning actually follows: there is no scientific method known to test the existence of God.

[leo-rcc]

Okay, what other method is there that would work?