Live Debate Right Now Betwwen Dawkins and Lennox

[bunny]

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Okay, my bad. I just assumed her honesty.

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I'm not explicitly doubting her honesty, more her awareness.

[madnak]

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I've never grasped the convincing power of lucky red shirts.

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You've got it backwards. The fact that most people playing the lottery have "systems" for determining the numbers means it is indicative of nothing that many lottery winners have systems. However, in evaluating the relative merits of different systems, the systems of winning lottery players must be given greater weight. That this weight is still close to 0 is irrelevant.

Now, if someone makes a claim based on a system, if previous claims based on that system have either never been made or have all been validated, and if that claim is also validated, we can start talking about real evidence. None of those conditions apply to the lucky red shirt. If someone always wins the lottery while wearing his red shirt, and never wins while wearing his blue shirt, that's another story...

[madnak]

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Okay, my bad. I just assumed her honesty.

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I'm not explicitly doubting her honesty, more her awareness.

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At any rate, if she's consistently predicting the winning numbers, something is going on.

[vhawk01]

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Okay, my bad. I just assumed her honesty.

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I'm not explicitly doubting her honesty, more her awareness.

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At any rate, if she's consistently predicting the winning numbers, something is going on.

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This has gotten way, WAY off track from the original dispute, which was how "faith" and "discerning" could be anything but entirely incompatible. Not that its necessarily a bad hijack.

[bunny]

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This has gotten way, WAY off track from the original dispute, which was how "faith" and "discerning" could be anything but entirely incompatible. Not that its necessarily a bad hijack.

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I dont think you ever replied to this...?

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Again, nothing to do with faith.

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I've got confused now, earlier you said it was nothing to do with evidence and I thought we were still talking about the same scenario. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

To summarise or perhaps clarify what I am saying:

I imagine a situation where the mufti and I have conflicting faith-derived beliefs. We both believe we know the lotto numbers every week because God has told us what they are. We proceed in this knowledge, cheerfully oblivious and/or uninterested in how the evidence matches up with the predictions of our respective faiths.

You then turn up, a skeptic, and deny faith is any reliable way to reach the truth. I claim it is, make all kinds of assertions, etcetera and eventually you say "Look, the mufti disagrees with you - if faith is so good, how come he's got it wrong?"

My response is that he is mistaken and I point to the fact that every week up until now I have been correct, whereas he has been incorrect. You would now be quite justified (I think) in believing that my prediction for next week is more likely to be correct than the mufti's.

You have formed the belief that I am right based on evidence. I have formed mine based on "a funny feeling in my head", "God's whispering", or whatever - ie faith. I have used the fact that my faith-derived beliefs are supported by evidence to persuade you that the mufti is mistaken and that my funny feeling is worth banking on. The evidence doesnt allow us to predict what will happen next week or the week after though - we'll have to wait for more god whispers for that.

I think faith is integral to the whole thing. I dont form my belief based on the evidence - for the purpose of this illustration, I'm assuming that even if the mufti was matching lotto results up until now I would continue believing that my answer would be right next week.

I think, despite relying on faith alone for my belief, it is not inconsistent for me to look around for evidence to support my claim when seeking to persuade a faith-suspicious skeptic.

Can you explain where we disagree?

[bunny]

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At any rate, if she's consistently predicting the winning numbers, something is going on.

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I agree - I think there is good evidence she can predict numbers. I dont think it speaks to her method for doing so.

Perhaps to clarify: If I claim that I feel for the plight of poor people because of god's gift of compassion and you observe me donating time and money to do what I can to alleviate their suffering. Wouldnt you think the evidence supports my claim of compassion (one belief I have) but doesnt say anything about where that compassion comes from (a second of my beliefs)?

[vhawk01]

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This has gotten way, WAY off track from the original dispute, which was how "faith" and "discerning" could be anything but entirely incompatible. Not that its necessarily a bad hijack.

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I dont think you ever replied to this...?

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Again, nothing to do with faith.

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I've got confused now, earlier you said it was nothing to do with evidence and I thought we were still talking about the same scenario. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

To summarise or perhaps clarify what I am saying:

I imagine a situation where the mufti and I have conflicting faith-derived beliefs. We both believe we know the lotto numbers every week because God has told us what they are. We proceed in this knowledge, cheerfully oblivious and/or uninterested in how the evidence matches up with the predictions of our respective faiths.

You then turn up, a skeptic, and deny faith is any reliable way to reach the truth. I claim it is, make all kinds of assertions, etcetera and eventually you say "Look, the mufti disagrees with you - if faith is so good, how come he's got it wrong?"

My response is that he is mistaken and I point to the fact that every week up until now I have been correct, whereas he has been incorrect. You would now be quite justified (I think) in believing that my prediction for next week is more likely to be correct than the mufti's.

You have formed the belief that I am right based on evidence. I have formed mine based on "a funny feeling in my head", "God's whispering", or whatever - ie faith. I have used the fact that my faith-derived beliefs are supported by evidence to persuade you that the mufti is mistaken and that my funny feeling is worth banking on. The evidence doesnt allow us to predict what will happen next week or the week after though - we'll have to wait for more god whispers for that.

I think faith is integral to the whole thing. I dont form my belief based on the evidence - for the purpose of this illustration, I'm assuming that even if the mufti was matching lotto results up until now I would continue believing that my answer would be right next week.

I think, despite relying on faith alone for my belief, it is not inconsistent for me to look around for evidence to support my claim when seeking to persuade a faith-suspicious skeptic.

Can you explain where we disagree?

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It just seems like a coincidence? I don't know if I quite get the point. You haven't demonstrated anything about the mufti's beliefs though. He is still just as right as you. The only person you have convinced is me, but thats only because of the evidence, which had nothing to do with your faith. So your faith has failed to convince me, and your evidence (necessarily) fails to convince the mufti. I am convinced by the evidence (this is where I said "so this has nothing to do with faith") and you and the mufti are still 100% positive you are right (this is where I said "so this has nothing to do with evidence") and we don't seem to have made any progress. You still can only say he is wrong based on solely your confidence in your own faith, since even you must admit the evidence would be completely meaningless, to you, were you in the mufti's position. So you can't say he is wrong because hey look at all this evidence. That evidence is convincing TO ME, of course, but then I had no faith to overcome in the first place.

[bunny]

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It just seems like a coincidence? I don't know if I quite get the point. You haven't demonstrated anything about the mufti's beliefs though. He is still just as right as you. The only person you have convinced is me, but thats only because of the evidence, which had nothing to do with your faith. So your faith has failed to convince me, and your evidence (necessarily) fails to convince the mufti. I am convinced by the evidence (this is where I said "so this has nothing to do with faith") and you and the mufti are still 100% positive you are right (this is where I said "so this has nothing to do with evidence") and we don't seem to have made any progress. You still can only say he is wrong based on solely your confidence in your own faith, since even you must admit the evidence would be completely meaningless, to you, were you in the mufti's position. So you can't say he is wrong because hey look at all this evidence. That evidence is convincing TO ME, of course, but then I had no faith to overcome in the first place.

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But your initial argument seemed to be that I as a faith-relier couldnt use evidence to persuade a faith-denier. I think this is not only possible, but also along the lines of NotReady's approach. He believes on faith but also seeks to defend God's word by pointing out to the doubters that the source of his faith is supported by the evidence whereas other religions arent. (I'm sure he'd put it differently and you obviously wont agree that the bible is supported by the evidence, that isnt relevant to the point though).

I still maintain that it is perfectly consistent for a theist - unconcerned with the evidence, to use evidence to persuade a skeptic that other faith's should be discarded but not his. This was from our original point of departure - your claim that a theist couldnt consistently weigh into the hitler/stalin debate.

[madnak]

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Perhaps to clarify: If I claim that I feel for the plight of poor people because of god's gift of compassion and you observe me donating time and money to do what I can to alleviate their suffering. Wouldnt you think the evidence supports my claim of compassion (one belief I have) but doesnt say anything about where that compassion comes from (a second of my beliefs)?

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But those beliefs aren't completely independent.

Belief 1 - I am compassionate
Belief 2 - I am compassionate because of God

In every case where belief 1 is untrue, belief 2 is also untrue. If you can establish that belief 1 is true, then one component of belief 2 is satisfied.

The question of where to go from there is a tough one. There are an infinite number of hypotheses to explain any given phenomenon. Because of this, we could say that we never have any evidence of any hypothesis. All we can do is narrow down the categories of hypothesis that may apply by falsifying other categories of hypothesis. This is crudely formalized in the scientific method, but there's always some guesswork involved.

If a woman definitely has the power to predict the lotto numbers, and she claims that power is the result of her nose wrinkles, then I consider the "nose wrinkle hypothesis" to be the most credible because I think her claim is evidence for it. Can I know that she is being rational, and that she isn't lying? No, but based on my own position in the world and my own approach, it seems likely that she has some understanding of how she's predicting the numbers.

Edit - Forgot to mention! I find the idea that she can predict the lottery numbers to be the least credible part of her hypothesis, so confirming just that part is a big deal.