(November 21, 2015 at 2:59 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: I think the idea that you can have a cut-and-dried standard is laughably naive, and indicative of your lack of real thinking on this matter. Equivocating different events of vastly different likelihood so that you can arrive at one standard, which you will then use to push your silly beliefs, is disingenuous.
If not a reasonable standard, then what do you propose (wishy thinking and feelings). That is not objective either. Using probability or likelihood of an event to determine the truth is difficult. Probability deals with statistical sets, not individual occurrences. Unlikely or improbable events do happen. Also are you referring to unlikely in frequency, your a priori beliefs, or what?
Quote:You can protest all you want, but your stubborn refusal to engage your own thinking when confronted with contrary information marks you as either incredibly dumb, or dishonest. And quite frankly, you don't strike me as dumb. I see no need to feed your transparent attempt to draw a false equivalence between reality and your particular fairy tale.
What do you think that I have refused to engage in and what contrary information do you think I am denying? Perhaps I can clarify if you have misunderstood. It does occur to me, that we can know what is real, by others sharing a reasonably similar experience. I have run into odd occurrences at work, where I am grateful that other people can validate what I think I saw and confirm or deny it (especially things which occur quickly).
Quote:You've been shown why eyewitness testimony is not reliable. You've also been shown why the scientific endeavor is not eyewitness testimony. You refuse to take that information aboard.
I have been shown that testimony and memory does suffer from certain issues (and acknowledge this). And I do still plan on addressing this, after I go through all of the references provided. I had a rough week at work, and nothing went as it should, so I have not been able to spend the time I had planned on it. A large part of my review however is going to deal with the mistake of claiming that something with is true of a part, is true of the whole.
When science is making a claim about how things work, this is repeatable, and differs from historical testimony in this manner. A number of other people can repeat the process, and verify the results of how it worked. The difference here is that the claims are based on the consistency of nature, and not a historical isolated incident. However, the similarity is in claims made about what is observed, and either confirmed or denied by others. And for this I rely on their testimony and others who can claim to have observed the same thing (whether they agree or disagree). I then may have to apply critical thinking to come up with a picture of what actually occurred and account for any differences. All these scientist could be lying, mistaken, or delusional, which is why I apply the same criteria to their testimony as I do others. I am not so naïve to think that a white lab coat makes one immune to the human condition, or absolved from the very same flaws, which have been addressed here in regards to testimony. Yes, there are differences, but those for the most part have not been addressed. If you want to discuss them, then we go over how they relate to other testimony as the topic of the thread.
