RE: Question about "faith"
September 26, 2020 at 12:48 pm
(This post was last modified: September 26, 2020 at 2:25 pm by John 6IX Breezy.)
My views on evidence are that it is underdeterministic and theory-dependent. By underdeterministic I mean that any individual bit of data is insufficient to draw any specific conclusion. This goes hand-in-hand with the idea that science doesn't prove it disproves.
And by theory-dependent I mean that all data requires interpretation; data only becomes evidence through the theory by which it is interpreted. Data is objective; evidence is subjective.
As an example, a bloody knife and a dead body, underdetermine any conclusion about whether a murder or a suicide occurred. They become evidence for either depending on which theory you interpret with.
As far as the alien question, the drunken man is free to take any piece of data he has, and interpret it through the abduction lens. And if I have any disagreement with him, my job is to falsify his claim, not to ask him for more evidence.
And by theory-dependent I mean that all data requires interpretation; data only becomes evidence through the theory by which it is interpreted. Data is objective; evidence is subjective.
As an example, a bloody knife and a dead body, underdetermine any conclusion about whether a murder or a suicide occurred. They become evidence for either depending on which theory you interpret with.
As far as the alien question, the drunken man is free to take any piece of data he has, and interpret it through the abduction lens. And if I have any disagreement with him, my job is to falsify his claim, not to ask him for more evidence.