RE: Literal and Not Literal
September 3, 2019 at 12:38 am
(This post was last modified: September 3, 2019 at 12:40 am by Belacqua.)
For a very long time, evolution occurred in the world, and no one knew it was happening.
First, because there was no creature capable of knowing it. Then, because no one figured it out -- no one knew what sort of evidence to look for.
So if someone in about the 17th century had claimed the existence of evolution, it would have been easy to "prove" that evolution doesn't occur (according to Fierce's standards), by pointing out that there was no evidence. Such a "proof" would have been incorrect. The lack of evidence at that time was not proof that evolution doesn't happen.
Likewise, the lack of evidence now for extraterrestrial life in no way constitutes proof that it doesn't exist.
In fact, as we know now, the evidence for evolution was all around, but no one knew that fossils, etc., constituted evidence. So there may be evidence all around us that extraterrestrial life exists, too, but we just haven't figured it out yet.
The point is that our not having evidence proves nothing either way.
I think we are reasonable to conclude that magical garden gnomes don't exist. For one thing, the descriptions we have of them don't fit in to what we know of the world.
Not so with extraterrestrials, whose existence in no way contradicts our current knowledge of the world.
First, because there was no creature capable of knowing it. Then, because no one figured it out -- no one knew what sort of evidence to look for.
So if someone in about the 17th century had claimed the existence of evolution, it would have been easy to "prove" that evolution doesn't occur (according to Fierce's standards), by pointing out that there was no evidence. Such a "proof" would have been incorrect. The lack of evidence at that time was not proof that evolution doesn't happen.
Likewise, the lack of evidence now for extraterrestrial life in no way constitutes proof that it doesn't exist.
In fact, as we know now, the evidence for evolution was all around, but no one knew that fossils, etc., constituted evidence. So there may be evidence all around us that extraterrestrial life exists, too, but we just haven't figured it out yet.
The point is that our not having evidence proves nothing either way.
(September 3, 2019 at 12:32 am)Fierce Wrote: Rather, I am going to reasonably state, I know magical garden gnomes don't exist. The same logic can be applied to extraterrestrials and god.
I think we are reasonable to conclude that magical garden gnomes don't exist. For one thing, the descriptions we have of them don't fit in to what we know of the world.
Not so with extraterrestrials, whose existence in no way contradicts our current knowledge of the world.
