RE: What are the evidence for no god?
October 19, 2015 at 4:06 pm
(This post was last modified: October 19, 2015 at 5:19 pm by I_am_not_mafia.)
Esquilax speaketh the truth.
It's the scientific method that is important, not the data or conclusions (aka 'the science bit')
The scientific method is used to investigate falsifiable questions. Asking whether there is a god that we cannot measure is not falsifiable. There is nothing that you can do to definitively say for sure that a god does not exist. Therefore it is not a scientific question. On the other hand coming up with a hypothesis that all swans are white is falsifiable. You just need to find one swan that isn't white to disprove the hypothesis.
The experiments and results need to be reproducible. So when writing a paper you need to explain exactly what you did, how and why. Then other people can try to reproduce those results to check that it works. Or if you come up with a claim that people are sceptical about, they can then analyse why your findings might be wrong.
Science is self correcting. An individual scientist would benefit if they are the one to come up with a better explanation of how things happen. So when someone says that the establishment is against them, they do not understand the scientific method. Everyone in the entire scientific community is trying to overturn science and be the one that comes up with a better solution or explanation. And because of this scientists will only state what they are absolutely sure that they can get away with based on the available evidence because they know they leave themselves open to attack if they speculate any more than that.
Science builds upon itself. Your work needs to reference the literature and show how it is relevant to all the other science that has gone on before it. This means that any scientist can look back through the literature and see how they have arrived at the conclusions that we have. They can look and test any underlying assumptions that may have led us down the wrong path.
Science needs to be communicated. You may have done the best science possible but if no one knows about it then it's worthless. This is because each experiment is yet another step on a ladder that goes forever upwards.
A paper needs to be peer reviewed before it is published. Normally this is done blind so people do not know whose work they are reviewing before deciding whether to accept the paper or not. The reviewers need not agree with the conclusion, but if there is no way that they can fault the method and the conclusion does not say anything more than the evidence then the paper will be accepted. And then when it is accepted the paper needs to be presented so other scientists can evaluate the work and look for any faults with it. A crowd of scientists will work far more effectively than a single scientist when looking at all the possible alternative explanations or trying to spot a fault.
This means that the scientific method is agnostic. It can be used for anything but because it is self correcting and collaborative, ultimately it not only leads to a better understand of how the world works, it is reliable enough to use in practise to create the modern world.
Creationists write papers that look like science, but they do not use the scientific method to actually produce science. This is because their work is not falsifiable, reproducible, collaborative or properly peer reviewed. Instead they try to subvert the method. A link was posted earlier in this thread where they actually admit to this
http://atheistforums.org/thread-37491-po...pid1088129
It's the scientific method that is important, not the data or conclusions (aka 'the science bit')
The scientific method is used to investigate falsifiable questions. Asking whether there is a god that we cannot measure is not falsifiable. There is nothing that you can do to definitively say for sure that a god does not exist. Therefore it is not a scientific question. On the other hand coming up with a hypothesis that all swans are white is falsifiable. You just need to find one swan that isn't white to disprove the hypothesis.
The experiments and results need to be reproducible. So when writing a paper you need to explain exactly what you did, how and why. Then other people can try to reproduce those results to check that it works. Or if you come up with a claim that people are sceptical about, they can then analyse why your findings might be wrong.
Science is self correcting. An individual scientist would benefit if they are the one to come up with a better explanation of how things happen. So when someone says that the establishment is against them, they do not understand the scientific method. Everyone in the entire scientific community is trying to overturn science and be the one that comes up with a better solution or explanation. And because of this scientists will only state what they are absolutely sure that they can get away with based on the available evidence because they know they leave themselves open to attack if they speculate any more than that.
Science builds upon itself. Your work needs to reference the literature and show how it is relevant to all the other science that has gone on before it. This means that any scientist can look back through the literature and see how they have arrived at the conclusions that we have. They can look and test any underlying assumptions that may have led us down the wrong path.
Science needs to be communicated. You may have done the best science possible but if no one knows about it then it's worthless. This is because each experiment is yet another step on a ladder that goes forever upwards.
A paper needs to be peer reviewed before it is published. Normally this is done blind so people do not know whose work they are reviewing before deciding whether to accept the paper or not. The reviewers need not agree with the conclusion, but if there is no way that they can fault the method and the conclusion does not say anything more than the evidence then the paper will be accepted. And then when it is accepted the paper needs to be presented so other scientists can evaluate the work and look for any faults with it. A crowd of scientists will work far more effectively than a single scientist when looking at all the possible alternative explanations or trying to spot a fault.
This means that the scientific method is agnostic. It can be used for anything but because it is self correcting and collaborative, ultimately it not only leads to a better understand of how the world works, it is reliable enough to use in practise to create the modern world.
Creationists write papers that look like science, but they do not use the scientific method to actually produce science. This is because their work is not falsifiable, reproducible, collaborative or properly peer reviewed. Instead they try to subvert the method. A link was posted earlier in this thread where they actually admit to this
http://atheistforums.org/thread-37491-po...pid1088129
