(October 18, 2018 at 9:46 am)Jörmungandr Wrote:
Your thoughtful input is welcome. I'm going to disagree somewhat however. I don't think that the biases of the time play that big of a role in looking at the evidence (any more, than our bias's do; we are just less aware of them). That's because I'm going to make a distinction between the claim, and the evidence. The evidence is what is observed or otherwise experienced, they are the facts of the case. The claim is the interpretation and conclusions from that evidence. Sometimes in the account, these may be mixed, and we need to separate the facts (observations) from the opinions. I had a customer the one time, called me up, because their servo motor control was broken, they replaced it and it still did the same thing. After far too much time, for me to get them to give an account of why they thought the servo motor was broken (what the seen or heard), rather than the conclusion that the servo motor was broken. I was looking for the evidence that lead to the conclusion, not the conclusion. (For anyone who is interested, it wasn't the servo).
As to the claim, that I am using double standards when involving other things, I think that is a false assumption. Mainly that you are assuming that I am using the same bad reasoning (or rather bias and lack of reasoning) to dismiss them. Often though, I don't find that they have similar evidence and corroboration within history. Also, I don't have the a priori hang ups that you do, so I'm perfectly willing to admit, that they can be true. But once again, I think that you have to have a good philosophy (reasoning) in place, and then move to the application of it.
It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. - Alexander Vilenkin
If I am shown my error, I will be the first to throw my books into the fire. - Martin Luther
If I am shown my error, I will be the first to throw my books into the fire. - Martin Luther