(September 19, 2012 at 7:04 am)genkaus Wrote: The constant k in this case is 0.
Reasonable credulity, by definition, is credulity based on reason - on evidence. Therefore, based on reason and evidence, X should ascribe p a credulity of r and no more than that. Adding any more credulity than reason permits makes X gullible. Thus, k is zero.
I don't find this very convincing. Suppose you lived in the Bronze Age, and someone proposed the existence of black holes. If you don't have the requisite scientific insight to be able to deduce the theoretical existence of black holes--along with all the machinery of modern theoretical physics--then any credence in the existence of black holes could not be based on reasoned deductions.
Nor would there be evidence available in the Bronze Age--"available" in sense of epistemically available, i.e. able to be detected by a Bronze Age person. The evidence might exist--say, some point in space from which not even light can escape--but no Bronze Age person would be able to acquire such evidence.
Is it really true, then, that believing in the existence of black holes in the Bronze Age requires "gullibility"? That strikes me as wrong. A gullible Bronze Age person might believe in the existence of black holes, but I don't see why a Bronze Age person who believes in the existence of black holes must be gullible.
“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.”
