Quote:Here's an example of what I mean: suppose one has a light emitter, a light detector and a clock at a certain point of space in an inertial frame of reference. Call this location the "origin". Let there be a mirror at another location a distance D away which is oriented such that a pulse of light emitted at the origin will be deflected back to the origin. Now suppose that a pulse of light is emitted from the origin, is relected off the mirror and travels back to the origin. The time between the light being emitted and detected is T. Suppose that the results are such that 2.9978 x 10^8 m/s = 2D/T. Do you believe that this can be taken as evidence that the speed of light as measured in this frame of references is c = 2.9978 x 10^8 m/s?
Yes, that experiment would count as evidence for the speed of light in that specific scenario, as long as it could be verified again and again.
Quote:While I'm waiting for your response please elaborate how people know of evidence? I.e. do you actually know that there is no evidence that God exists?
No I do not know that there is no evidence that God exists. I am an agnostic atheist, I claim no knowledge of God. Theists have it very easy. All they have to do to prove God exists is to find one piece of evidence confirming it. Then it doesn't matter if atheists keep "not finding" him in places, because he has been found. Theists have yet to find this one piece of evidence.
Quote:Since I assume you'll say that no evidence exists then what do you base that on? Is if the lack of you never finding, hearing of, seeing etc of such evidence?
I base it on my own observations and the fact that every time I have asked a theist (and others have done so) they have finally admitted that they have no such evidence.
Quote:You've heard that E = mc2 right? Do you believe its true? On what do you base this belief in? I take it that you've never actually been in a laboratory and carried out all the experiments that led Einstein to make this conclusion? So if you have never actually carried out experiments etc. then how do you know what evidence there is or isn't? My point is that we normally take such things on authority and that is often our source of knowledge. In that sense I ask you what evidence you yourself have of various things you consider to be facts? In fact this is what I was getting at when I asked what people considered to be sources of knowledge. Authority is just one thing people accept as being a source of knowledge. There are others of course.
I can take things as true based on evidence or based on trusted processes. Just how I would trust my sister when she tells me that she needs some money, I trust the process of peer review. So yes, peer review could be seen as an authority, but it has worked so far so we have a level of trust.
