+Cult of Personality Just because something has done great things, that does not mean that it is rational. Belief in religion built the pyramids, but that does not make it rational. If you think that being able to do things constitutes knowledge that the theories that underlie those are true, then you are sorely mistaken, or should start believing in ancient Egyptian gods. As to your claim that philosophy is not useful, philosophy invented science (so if you find science useful, then philosophy is useful too). The reason that people still get PhDs (Doctorates in Philosophy) in all fields is that everything that we study today is simply an offshoot of philosophy (th-cam.com/video/ZqOmPbats6w/w-d-xo.html). Furthermore philosophy underlies science. Philosophy of science is what must work to justify or refute the methods of science (th-cam.com/video/54rHYg71AXU/w-d-xo.html). Science used to just be known as "Natural Philosophy". As to employment, philosophers are the ones that ask whether it is better to be employed or to be happy. Personally, I'm a philosopher, I'm employed and I'm happy. Are you?
Excellent and troubling video, Carneades.org But I consider science to be a useful provisional model, rather than a reason to believe that X is _truly_ the case. However, hypothesis revision can be rational. This is because reason can be defined as the capacity to reevaluate assumptions based on evidence, and rationality can be defined as the condition of being reasonable. The principle of explosion is one such assumption. If a prediction fails, one could reevaluate the assumptions, make a probabilistic argument, then a new prediction to test. But always remain skeptical about the conclusions.
Potter Suppositionalist I'm not sure how this will help. The question is "how do you rationally reevaluate assumptions based on evidence?" If the theory predicts that a perihelion claims there will be another planet, there is nothing to tell us if it is rational to throw out the laws of movement, or the claim that there is not another planet. Which is reasonable?
Carneades.org That depends on which definition we are using. It seems to me that an essential feature of reason to be able to reevaluate things in general. I think the principle of parsimony can be a useful guide, along with the total body of evidence (excluding any notions of certain knowledge). *"If the theory predicts that a perihelion claims there will be another planet, there is nothing to tell us if it is rational to throw out the laws of movement, or the claim that there is not another planet."* It seems reasonable to suspend judgement on both and gather more data. Generally, there are multiple models in physics, covering several likely scenarios. When a confusing discovery is made, we should question all of our assumptions and construct more tests. This is a scientific skeptical approach, assume all assumptions are false (or at least doubt them and challenge them). I'm not saying this solves the problem, because it seems far worse that everything is based on untestable assumptions. But it is something to work with. I'd argue science is possibly rational.
Potter Suppositionalist "It seems to me that an essential feature of reason to be able to reevaluate things in general. I think the principle of parsimony can be a useful guide, along with the total body of evidence (excluding any notions of certain knowledge)." The problem is that what is to say that the contradiction does not arise from our use of parsimony as a principle? As if we abandon parsimony, we will lose the contradiction. "It seems reasonable to suspend judgement on both and gather more data." I'm all for suspending judgement. The problem seems to me that once you start, you can't stop. You can't tell if it was one of your theories, one of your ampliative principles or even one of the laws of logic that you should throw out. Once you are faced with contradictory evidence, there's no rational way to choose which to suspend judgement on, the only way to remain ration is to suspend judgement on them all. The point is that once you get here, how will you ever be able to come to any scientific conclusion? I'm fine with the skeptic being rational, but I'm not sure that we can call science rational, if there is no science that can be done rationally (in the sense of forming theories and beliefs not taking actions).
Carneades.org *"The problem is that what is to say that the contradiction does not arise from our use of parsimony as a principle?"* Should we hold inconsistency intolerant logic above inconsistency tolerant logic systems? There doesn't seem to be a system for determining which logical principles to use. *"As if we abandon parsimony, we will lose the contradiction."* Should we hold the principle of non-contradiction above all other guiding principles? If we didn't have that principle, it could be difficult to confront an argument. But apart from that, why should we hold that principle in the first place? *"I'm all for suspending judgement. The problem seems to me that once you start, you can't stop. You can't tell if it was one of your theories, one of your ampliative principles or even one of the laws of logic that you should throw out."* Yet we can still make probabilistic arguments, based on overwhelming evidence and the success rates of competing models which cover all of the above scenarios. This can give an indication of where to direct the investigation. But the questions never end in science. *"Once you are faced with contradictory evidence, there's no rational way to choose which to suspend judgement on, the only way to remain ration is to suspend judgement on them all."* A good skeptical scientists questions all assumptions. Any principle can be questioned and subjected to revision. But central to the notion of reason is the ability to reevaluate assumptions. There are methods available to demarcate likely from unlikely possibilities. *"The point is that once you get here, how will you ever be able to come to any scientific conclusion?"* I think we can make statements and arguments which involve uncertainty and probability. This provides motivation to study operations of nature in specific directions. The Bayesian approach helps us determine the probability of a hypothesis without certainty. *"I'm fine with the skeptic being rational."* I think as long as we are willing to reevaluate assumptions and avoid dogmatism, we are likely to be rational. This goes for all of our guiding principles and methodologies. It's possible a skeptical scientist could be rational.
Are you implicitly implying that the main motivation behind Kepler's and Galileo's acceptance of Heliocentrism over Geocentrism is their political/cultural affiliation?
+Gemparkzz Political/cultural affiliation? No. Personal biases or preferences? Sure. Let's take the mountains on the moon as an example. We have a set of contradictory propositions. 1) The objects of the heavens are perfect spheres. 2) I see mountains on the moon with a telescope. From this, you can doubt that your telescope works, you can doubt your own vision, you can posit that there is a layer in between us and the moon that creates this illusion, you can aver that God is making this illusion to test your faith, or you can deny that the objects of the heavens are perfect spheres. The point is that without further experiment there is nothing science can do to tell us which of the options is correct. There is no rational decision process. You can do more tests, but the option that God is testing your faith, will always elude testing. The point is that the only way that we can choose between these options is our own irrational bias since we have no rational way to choose. This bias may take the form of political or cultural affiliations or not. But that doe snot make it any more rational.
I reject this reasoning absolutely. Just because no theory is completely falsifiable doesnt mean they are all equally true. One theory is the most true and logic could help you decide that.
Lakatos provides an ambliatuve method for revising beliefs or baseline theories. If a we revise a belief in such a way that it leads to new theories, new predictions, and or new knowledge then the revision is progressive. Now, of course you would say that Lakatos' idea is also part of the web of beliefs and should be brought into question. But, progressing knowledge is the base goal of theories.
I have two questions regarding the subject of your video: 1:can't the problem of underdetermination can be solved simply by probability theory? I mean the thing that has the least datapoints will therefore be the first to question, I mean you won't get to absolute truth, but you won't have to resort to irrational means. 2: also can't you just put a sort of domain of applicability onto that web. by which I mean, that the web shown in the video can then only apply to things that are in question and not on logic rationality and reason -- the more fundamental parts of the system.
1: There is a system of probability that attempts to resolve some of these problems known as Bayesian Epistemology. Here's the series: th-cam.com/video/YRz8deiJ57E/w-d-xo.html 2: The problem is that logic is in question, there are multiple types of logic and it may be that the contradiction derives from them.
I find it unconvincing, I think that Kuhn provides some good arguments against Popper's claims, but I have not fully investigated it. We will be covering one if not both of those philosophers in the Four Weeks of Famous Philosophers Series. th-cam.com/video/4bEhUCX8nkg/w-d-xo.html
"If two people might reach two contradictory conclusions after correctly following a process, it is irrational." In the case of an experiment are we talking about the physical conclusion of the experiment, or the individuals' interpretation based on the theory, and experimentation? Albert Einstein and Neils Bohr spring to mind. As to the two storey building on Churchill Street: 1) Throw out the original belief - seems the best option, all else being equal. 2) Changing your belief about your location is the No True Scotman Fallacy in all but name. 3) There are differences in storey height - I'm in a room with a 9-foot stud (oo-er, missus), I've been in rooms with 15-foot studs. The point being, this is empirically verifiable, albeit you may need to go inside the offending building to confirm it. 4) Change your mind about any number of other beliefs? But wouldn't it make sense to start with those that seem to directly impinge upon the matter at hand? So, the question is, HOW is there no rational way to decide between these options? Surely establishing the facts of the matters that underpin the assumption is a perfectly rational way to decide this... or is the issue that there is no way to formulate 'check your assumptions' logically? (Which I suppose is the point of this video in combination with the last.)... From whence came the belief that Churchill's Street only has buildings two storeys in height? If you were told, maybe they were wrong; if you ascertained it for yourself, maybe someone has added a storey to their building. Does not your comment about throwing out deeper beliefs, beliefs that hold true in other circumstances, make the point that the only belief you can throw out is the one about two-storey buildings on Churchill's Street (a recent conjunction)... is it not rational to retain the beliefs that have served you well until now, and revise the belief directly contradicted by the evidence - the one that has the least above it (with regard to weight of experience). Indeed, this is what you'd have to do if three people each hold one of those major options as their choice for which belief to adopt (much as Einstein and Bohr did). None of which undermines what the SSK has to say, because they may be right in certain circumstances, but they are unlikely to be right in all, or even many cases. Ultimately, if we can ascertain that we are on Churchill's Street, and that all of the houses are indeed two storeys, we can hold the belief. If, however, we took a wrong turn in the dark (or have been driven by a rubbish cab driver), we have to adjust our belief about our location (and the belief about Churchill's Street remains, because our location is a regularly updated belief). Or we can check to see if there has been any recent building work that would justify a change of belief. Is the psychologically compelling choice necessarily the wrong choice? With the exception of those that specialise in quelling cognitive dissonance in service of beliefs that they find comforting, most individuals will revise the newest belief first (such as their current location), unless that leads to a contradiction... and if they are an active participant in seeking truth then the ongoing recursion will eventually resolve the matter in the modification of a (probably auxiliary) prior belief. I want to suggest that we can split a belief into two, where one holds true in those circumstances encountered until now, and the "new" belief being that it doesn't hold true in a given circumstance (i.e. I before E, except after C, except were 'EI' is pronounced 'ay' (e.g. eight and neighbour), and except were the word comes more recently from a Romance language (e.g. concierge or Hacienda), and except where the words is a known exception (e.g. weird and science), etc.). This splitting would not upset the web of beliefs (ampliative or otherwise) and would resolve both the 'location' and 'number of storeys' problems in your narrative, because you could split both beliefs out from their underpinning beliefs, with a caveat of 'except for now', and then either retain the split revision, or re-concatenate the split-out revision once you'd ascertained the truth of location and number of storeys. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that you could instantiate this idea using an associationist learning network to replicate the possible mechanism in a brain, relying on neurons, axons, dendrites, Hebb's law, etc.
COEXISTential There seem to be a number of things going on here. To conclusions, I'm talking about beliefs, propositions, theories that are formed. Now off to Churchill's Street. Assessing the origins of beliefs only gives us more things to deny not less. If, for example, I formed the belief that there are no buildings higher than 2 stories, because I walked all the way down Churchill's street and I saw no such building, then if I choose to throw out this belief over others, I will still be underdetermined as to whether I should throw out the belief that I was on Churchill's street at the time, or that I did not notice the building, or that I did not walk down the whole street... and so on. "is it not rational to retain the beliefs that have served you well until now, and revise the belief directly contradicted by the evidence - the one that has the least above it (with regard to weight of experience)" No it's not, as people could, (as we note in the definition of rational) have been served well by different beliefs, so they could come to different conclusions. Therefore relying on personal bias is not a rational way to choose what t believe. And if you say that, "that's the only way you can believe anything, or make a choice, you beg the question against the skeptic, who does not see a way to make such a choice and stay rational. "If we can ascertain that we are on Churchill's Street, and that all of the houses are indeed two storeys, we can hold the belief" To assume that we will at some point know which belief to doubt, is impossible. What piece of information will allow you to deny the hypothesis that all of the buildings on Churchill's street are no taller than 2 stories? . .Is the psychologically ...prior belief." This seems correct as to the way that people most often reorganize beliefs, but simply because that is the way we do it, does not mean anything about the truth of those beliefs. . .The problem with your solution is that it would require an infinite disjuction and there is nothing to say that a new rule will hold in it's stated situations, or even determine what those situations might be. Let's say I hold the rule that I always comes before E. Then I encounter the word neighbor. Either I could conclude that E comes before I when followed by ghbor or I could conclude that E comes before I when preceded by n, or when sounding like 'ay' or when John spells it, but he's horrible at spelling, or in your dictionary, but your dictionary is wrong, or does not represent my dialect correctly. It seems that there are an infinite number of conclusions that you could draw and none of them are sufficiently determined by the evidence.
I'm struggling to understand this. By this same argument couldn't you say something like "It's rational to believe the Earth is flat" and conclude that science is irrational? Wouldn't the claim that a skyscraper has only two stories be its own hypothesis? Why wouldn't we go back and retest previous theories if we thought they might be false?
MrTweej You seem to be missing the point. We are not saying that it is rational to believe that the earth is flat. We are saying that in using the best science you can, you are able to come to different conclusions based on the same information. The point is that if you go back to test a previous theory, you are still relying on other theories and if it leads to a contradiction you don't know which to trust or distrust. You should check out the previous video in the series for more information th-cam.com/video/-9NuFeNoFeo/w-d-xo.html
Carneades.org "We are saying that in using the best science you can, you are able to come to different conclusions based on the same information." -Which is why scientist test/demonstrate the information to be true and use already known information/evidence to support that.(If it contradicts, adapt to the new evidence/information. We are talking about *scientific* theories, not your elementary school project "theory"). Now speculation on the unknown, sure, different conclusions. But that's not really a good argument against science at all. "The point is that if you go back to test a previous theory, you are still relying on other theories and if it leads to a contradiction you don't know which to trust or distrust." -You could also say "well if you are testing the laws of logic, you also have to rely on the other laws of logic" it's just a nonsensical statement. "if you are using math, you have to use the rules of math" Like seriously.....what a poor objection. Also, theories isn't the word you want to use, laws are. Theories can "support" each other in the end, but they don't uphold each other. -more sever lack of understanding of science.
I do not see how new evidence can cast doubt on the principles of logic. If it turns out that some logical principles are wrong I imagine it would have to be demonstrated by logical proofs, likewise with Occam's razor - if one wants to undermine our understanding of probability, they would have to use mathematical proofs, and if one wants to undermine our factual beliefs (e.g. elephants live in Africa), they have to use empirical evidence. But it doesn't make sense to me that one would use empirical evidence to subvert logical principles.
There are two questions for a logical system, whether it is internally consistent, something that could be disproven with logical proofs, and whether it accurately represents the world (e.g. if we discover that some statements can be both true and false at the same time, like an electron being both in one place and not in that place at the same time) we might say that our logical system is internally fine, but fails to map onto our world, and we need a non-classical logic system (think euclidean vs non euclidean geometry for describing different surfaces, if we learned we were dealing with a flat surface, that empirical fact would tell us something about which mathematical principles fit a given situation the best).
@@CarneadesOfCyrene I suppose that makes sense, although I don't know much physics and I don't know (I'm skeptical) if it's really a flaw in logic and not just the shattering of a certain illusion, the illusion being an emergent theory (whereas a more fundamental theory remains fine). Edit: I'm talking about the electron.
@@CarneadesOfCyrene I pricked up my ears when the possiblity of denying Law of excluded middle. But suppose I insist on the law, and offer an alternative - we think electrons can be in more than one place at the same time is because we don't understand what electrons really are.
But that would be ignoring that spectrum that varies from belief to knowledge. What we desire as rational beings is justified true belief, which is a belief, of the past, present, and of how reality functions.
I thought that your definition of irrational here would be better put under the category of non-rational. Irrational, is when you find a contradiction or an inconsistency, and say that you believe all your claims anyway.
I guess if you define rationality as deductive logic only, your conclusion follows. But some philosophers believe in a wider version of rationality (I have Kant in mind). Then this reductio ad absurdum (I assume this is all constructed as a reductio ad absurdum because you hold no beliefs) does not lead to the conclusion, because you have not assumed the opponent's definition of rationality.
jimbouzoukas I'm not sure I know exactly what rationality you are referring to. If you have another definition, please offer it. I have a series on inductive rationality and Bayesian Epistemology right now, but as I will demonstrate in the final objection video this will be plagued by the same problems.
In addition to Occam's razor, there's a number of criteria we use to evaluate theories, such as accuracy, consistency, scope, and fruitfulness. The issue is that, our very adherence to these criteria could be thrown out in the face of disconfirming evidence.
You might as well revise your belief about irrationality. So science is not rational, nor irrational considering that I might have different definition for rationality/irrationality than yours. And what does it mean to have a definition about something? What does it mean for something to "mean" anything? So we go ad infinitum here.
The protestations made by the SSK are uncomfortably close to the truth. There are cases in Science history (e.g the initial skepticism regarding discovery of Pulsars). On the other hand (quite separately) I take issue with the presenter's reasoning. He presupposes that the choice to believe one hypothesis instead of a contradictory alternative, when both are consistent with the evidence, is rational if and only if it is an inescapable conclusion inferred from the evidence; it is irrational otherwise.This is a rather extreme understanding of (ir)rational, not held by most people or by scientists themselves. A rational choice is one that is both supported by the evidence and by arguments that the reasoner judges to be credible, and defendable to others. Without either being inescapable, it may be that both choices are rational (implying a need for more evidence), only one is, or possibly neither are convincing. The possibility of a rationally chosen hypothesis does not rule out it being incorrect. So if a Nobel Laureate presents a startling new hypothesis in their field, consistent with some experiments, it would be rational (or at least prudent) for other scientists in the field to consider it seriously and irrational to dismiss it out of hand. But if a junior researcher presented the same hypothesis, it would be rational to be skeptical. They might not consider it irrational to dismiss it out of hand.
1) Seems to me you are basing your view of rationality on contradiction: even one contradiction makes a concept or derivation irrational. And as contradictions (to me) seem to rely exclusively on the LEM, symbolized as ~(p&~p) = T , then surely your views of rationality rely on and only apply to systems where the LEM applies. Consider a universe with only two people and thus LEM applies: it is irrational in this universe to believe that one is a child and a father and the other person is also a child and a father... if one is the father, the other must be a child; if there are only two people, I cannot be a child and a father to the same person at the same time; this is in contradiction and irrational. However, in a universe with three people, LEM no longer applies: it is now rational to believe that one person is both child and father since they can be one to one and the other to the other; put another way it is not irrational to believe that a person is both a child and a father. Thus, unlike as you state towards the end, this is not a case that one is forced to believe a contradiction by not having LEM but rather that by not having LEM, contradictions are avoided or, worse yet, harder to define than simply as ~(p&~p) Thus it seems to me that a view on rationality based on contradiction forces one to accept and use LEM in order for contradiction to be well defined. 2) Also, I don't know why Quine's rationality must be a OR choice, as in either we throw out the experiment or we throw out the theory. Would not the rational (or, from your videos again, the objective bayesian) thing to do is replace OR with AND such that each option (throw out H or throw out E) has a belief of 0.5 and then explore both options as a further experiment? This would also nullify your objection at 7:00 since all rational people would have the same 0.5 degree of belief in all such options and thus all rational people would be in agreement.... as well as the objections of the SSK at 8:00 since all options are chosen, gendered and non-gendered for example, but each only given a (total number of H and E options)^-1 degree of belief. 3)"It's simply a fact of psychology which aspect you choose to revise" I'm not sure what you mean by psychology since in the 250+ videos I've seen of yours, you've not mentioned it once in relation to philosophy, your skepticism, or your POV. As such, I will attempt to counter by saying that if I have a rule that I abide 100% of the time, that "I will always change my mind based on evidence", then is that psychology? Or the rule "Anytime I've a choice to dismiss H or E, I will flip a coin: heads I dismiss H and tails I dismiss E", then is that rule psychological (never mind skepticism regarding randomness)? What about my objective bayesian stance in 2); is that psychological? Psychologically, I could argue these make for any of these decisions to be the "easiest" since I always have one rule to deal with given infinite possibilities, I have to have a way to break that symmetry and choose one or forever remain skeptically stagnant. If these are not the psychologies you implied, then I present this as showing that there are ways (such as my examples here and my point 2 above) which, IMO, you can rationally decide between the two. 4) I think your discomfort at 10:30 is justified. After all, science rely on deductive logic so it stands to reason that deductive logic ALONE should not be able to distinguish between alternative sciences (Godel's incompleteness I think?). So, while I don't see him as expanding the definition of rationality (it still is clear in my head, at this point, that it's ultimately tied into contradiction), I do see him adding a system *outside* science to hopefully help distinguish between alternatives *inside* of science. I can't help but draw the analogy to contour integrals where, integrals that are impossible/irrational (in the philosophical not numerical) in the Real number line are possible/rational by going "outside" the real number line, doing calculations on the imaginary number line, and then getting an answer in the Real number line... in effect, we stepped outside the reals into the imaginaries to do a calculation impossible with reals alone, and then returned back to the reals since that is what is physically relevant. Not sure how good the analogy is but it sure seems similar to me.
To your first point, I think that you fail to understand the LEM. It does not claim that you cannot be both a father and a child, for example, but rather that the following statements cannot be true at the same time: John is a father. It is not the case that John is a Father. Are there systems which object to the LEM and do not take it as an axiom, certainly. However most systems do, including the classical logic that underpins science. As for 2, the problem is (as I feel I noted somewhere in my Bayesian Epistemology series) that there are an infinite number of possibilities (skeptical scenarios and so forth), given any particular contradiction, so we cannot assign any non-zero degree of belief to any of the options. In regards to 3, let me clarify what I mean by "it is simply a fact of psychology". Perhaps a clearer way to state this would be, "it is based on an irrational proclivity which belief you choose to revise". That feeds more into my global skepticism picture (see my videos on In Defense of Skepticism). Whatever rule you have, or personal method of deciding things that you posses, it is not an element of the scientific method. Your first example, that you change your mind "based on evidence" is unclear as you fail to define evidence, or what you mean by change your mind. Does evidence lead you to suspend judgement? Does it lead you to believe the negation of you hypothesis? Does it lead you to discount previous evidence? The coin flip, as noted above will pose quite a problem since there are an infinite number of possible beliefs to doubt to remain consistent. All of this is a moot point, since, just like occam's razor, no matter what "rule" you come up with, that rule is just as subject to doubt as the evidence itself. If we arrive at a contradiction, we can just as easily doubt the rule. As for 4, science famously does not rely on deductive logic alone, in fact, it in principle cannot (see Hume: th-cam.com/video/sd8cxXfPJU4/w-d-xo.html). Godel's incompleteness tells us that even if it did, no deductive system can be complete, sound and do basic arithmetic. The problem with taking a system outside of science to decide the conflict is that such a system has no more chance of being rational than science does. We could just as easily throw out a rule of that system instead of the conflicting evidence to neutralize the contradiction.
1) "To your first point," That is what I'm saying though, the LEM underpins the definition of contradiction and contradictions underpins the definition of (ir)rationality: hence LEM underpins your concept of (ir)rationality. Thus, as you "Are there systems which object to the LEM and do not take it as an axiom, certainly. However most systems do, including the classical logic that underpins science." I would LOVE to enter into a category theory vs. set theory answer to this question. LEM, as I understand category theory, is a VERY restrictive condition on logic and one that once relaxed, leads to much more flexible systems. Heyting Algebra without LEM is the basis of Intuitivitic Logic the same way that Boolean Algebra is with LEM. Maybe you have a video along these lines!?! 2) "As for 2, the problem is (as I feel I noted somewhere in my Bayesian Epistemology series) that there are an infinite number of possibilities (skeptical scenarios and so forth), given any particular contradiction, so we cannot assign any non-zero degree of belief to any of the options." Yes, but only a finite number of non-trivial possibilities accessible at any one instant. In Category Theory, we bundle all the non-trivial solutions into an equivalence class and then deal with the class not the solution. Thus runaway truths like given p, then p& (pvq) & (pvqvr) & (pvqvrv...)&.... ...get reduced to the equivalence class p and now we work with p as an equivalence class instead of a element or member. 3) "Whatever rule you have, or personal method of deciding things that you posses, it is not an element of the scientific method. " Yet the scientific method is exactly that, a personal method of deciding things. So are you accepting the SM as a rule but dismissing all others? That seems rather subjective. "The coin flip, as noted above will pose quite a problem since there are an infinite number of possible beliefs to doubt to remain consistent." Let me for the moment forgo your other questions and focus on this; if the other questions are important by all means re-ask and I will address. So, the coin flip doesn't have an infinite number of beliefs as I see it. What else is there to believe but that the coin will be heads (p) or tails (q)? And if I make a decision based on p for example, how is my decision "infinitized" by having it also be true, after p is shown to be true, that pvq is still also true? Or pvqv~q, etc? All of these are tautologies, but they all "reduce" to the simple fact p. So I'm still unsure how a finite event (coin flip) can lead to infinite tautologies and thus prevent us from using a coin flip to make decisions rationally. "All of this is a moot point, since, just like occam's razor, no matter what "rule" you come up with, that rule is just as subject to doubt as the evidence itself. If we arrive at a contradiction, we can just as easily doubt the rule." IF. I am not convinced that there is a contradiction in the rule "when in doubt, flip a coin" since the infinite truths that seem to be the basis of your countering that rule is, to me, a moot point in light of equivalence classes. 4)"The problem with taking a system outside of science to decide the conflict is that such a system has no more chance of being rational than science does." As I've come to believe (and please don't take this as a derogatory or dismissive statement, merely a conclusion on my part, as I clearly enjoy our repartee), I think your skeptical stance requiring equality instead of isomorphism is the crux of a lot of your paradoxes or objections. Thus, if rationality is based on searching for truth, then one can (IMO) never be rational. This would seem to be the tenor of A LOT of your videos but I would argue that is a result not of being skeptic, but on being an absolute skeptic seeking absolute truth. In effect, you've set the bar so high (TRUTH!) that IMO it can only be met conceptually and never practically. I haven't watched you defense of skepticism videos; think I'll do that now (and your 4 weeks of philosophers series) to get a better idea of your stance but I've seen 250+ videos so my conclusion is, even if not exactly true, then maybe isomorphic with "a" truth. ;)
I'm not really happy with your argument against Lauden. Although Lauden definition of "good reasoning" is fuzzy, it stills follows a set of rules. But in your argument, when faced to an evidence that brings contradictions to the theory x, you asume that he might forget about saud rules and decide psychologically which theory to keep. While in practice that COULD happen, you would still be arguing against decisions taken psychologically and NOT against Lauden's rules. It's like if I would argue against a skeptic saying that come what may, she might decide to use logic and thus be potentially wrong. I can't, trhough that reasoning, asume that skepticism is wrong since I attacked the particular case where the skeptic broke it's own rules. It's the same when someone following Lauden's rules suddenly brakes them to reason psychologically. You can't conclude Lauden's rules are wrong. I think that the arguments against Lauden should instead be taken when filtering what is considered or not "good reasoning". Please excuse me if I understood your argument incorrectly
Alejandro Quiñones "But in your argument, when faced to an evidence that brings contradictions to the theory x, you asume that he might forget about saud rules and decide psychologically which theory to keep." Incorrect, I am saying that there is nothing in the rules that does not allow you to deny one of the rules when faced with a contradiction. And even if there were, that could just as easily be denied along with the offensive rule. The point is not that Laudan will deny one of his rules, but that one could without arriving at a contradiction and arrive at a different conclusion. If two different conclusions COULD be reached without contradiction, then the method is irrational. The point is that the LNC demands that we get rid of contradictory beliefs if we have them. There is nothing that says that we can't just get rid of the LNC. That will also render the system consistent (though we need to have a new understanding of consistent). I hope that this is clear. We're not saying that the rules are wrong, just that there is no rule that is so sacrosanct that we would be irrational to throw it out. If the laws of logic led to a contradiction (as I have argued that they do) we need to throw one of them out. The laws of logic themselves all claim that you cannot throw any of them out, and that you must throw one out. That's a contradiction which will not be resolved by keeping them, only be eliminating them. Just because the theory asserts that you should keep it does not mean that you should any more than an ampliative principle asserting that you should keep it means that you should.
You make it sound as though everything is arbitrary. There are conclusions that are better than other conclusions. They guy who says that the building has three stories and therefore my belief about the buildings on this street is more probably wrong, is more right than the guy who says that it's a big two story or that geography ceases to work in my presence. And this, as you mention, can be empirically verified so I don't see how that's not rational.
Why could you not scientificly research the fact that you were indeed in the right street and the building was indeed 3 stories tall? Within our human capacities, why could we not make a rational decision? Does the fact that we can never know for sure mean that we cannot make rational decisions? I'm thinking this whole video is irrational...
+Kastelot If you scientifically research it and discover that your research conflicts with your previously held belief, you are underdetermined between either throwing out your previously held belief or doubting your scientific research. You are not required to do either. If we say that there is some other criterion that says that you must believe the results of scientific research, then that criterion itself can further be the subject of doubt as opposed to your original belief.
+Carneades.org Hmm alright. In the scientific method you would throw out the original belief because it is proven wrong. Because it is a belief and not a scientific fact. But you would argue that we could also disbelief the results gotten from our scientific methods/logics. Maybe they could just contradict without one of them being wrong... Right?
Without being unkind. There is a thread running through all your presentations that I have viewed so far to knock science and its big brother epistemology any which way. Are you funded by Boko Harem (keep out western education)? You even take Socrates famous phrase "I know nothing" as your motto knowing how easily it can be misinterpreted. You knock logic, maths, statistics, the scientific method, the demarcation criteria, reason........... You even go for some apology and in the middle of this presentation you indulge in some conspiracy theory. You even knock science for practicing induction when you know that it was binned by Hume in 1739. You will take any ammunition you can find as long as it might help your attack on reason and science. You must be US based. Without sounding authoritative, science doesn't do omniscience, this is where we are today: we stand on the shoulders of giants and see further, we have a revered history of giants in science and epistemology, philosophy gave birth to science or natural philosophy, you could say that every scientific discipline is a philosophical discipline doing the business of cosmology in its own specialism, epistemology is the king of disciplines and always has been, it is science's big brother and tells every other discipline what it can and cannot do via the epistemological arsenal (logic which includes maths and stats, rational argument, nominalism, the scientific method and the falsifiability criteria). Science and its big brother do not do your most popular word "BELIEF", neither do we do political, psychological, bribes, bias or opinion (subjective knowledge). We just do objective knowledge. Our explanations of the world we live in and ourselves are the best there are. They have survived critical third party peer review and their truth-likeness and explanatory value is the highest. We place them on the shelf marked truth. But we never claim that they are encyclopaedic absolute truths. Each and ever one of our explanations can be shot down tomorrow by a better explanation having greater truth-likeness, universality and explanatory value. If we were to take an oath it would be to be a critical rational realist. We also only do ONE. There is only one world and therefore only one explanation. I consider that my explanation is the one. Comments welcome.
+David Lilley It seems to me that you have asserted your position clearly, but have failed to back it up in any way. If you want to disagree with the argument in the video, you need object to it, not simply state that it is wrong. Now, let's be clear, skepticism is the basis of Western education. I quote Socrates because he was the first skeptic and the father of philosophy. Being a skeptic, however, does not mean simply that you question those beliefs that you already do not believe, it means that you question everything, science and logic included. Note, that when I say I am a skeptic, I am talking about philosophical skepticism (th-cam.com/video/S2sK_EOKb1Q/w-d-xo.html) an ancient position which has in many ways through its role in influencing Descartes and other Early Modern thinkers helped create the scientific method. With that cleared up, let's take on your points one by one. *"you indulge in some conspiracy theory"* I am presenting a position that is being actively debated by philosophers of science. If you listen I do not endorse the most extreme of those views. It is merely a possible consequence of the demonstration that science is irrational. *"science for practicing induction when you know that it was binned by Hume in 1739"* Simply because Hume revealed the problem of induction to us, it does not mean that many conclusions of science are not still based upon induction. Science still requires the uniformity of nature for any predictions to hold water. *"You will take any ammunition you can find as long as it might help your attack on reason and science."* I'm a skeptic. I doubt everything. Not for the sake of doubting but because I hold claims up to a high bar of justification. I have quite a few videos questioning religion and the existence of God as well (th-cam.com/video/9ZDhra539Ww/w-d-xo.html). *"You must be US based."* Though I see no way in which it has bearing on the conversation, I live in West Africa. *"we stand on the shoulders of giants and see further, we have a revered history of giants in science and epistemology"* I highly encourage that you check out Thomas Kuhn one of the most influential philosophers and historians of science of the last century (up there with Popper, though I would say quite critical of Popper's work). He has some great arguments as to why the theories of these giants get torn down every time there is a paradigm shift. th-cam.com/video/kmj_mFxvj5w/w-d-xo.html *"you could say that every scientific discipline is a philosophical discipline doing the business of cosmology in its own specialism, epistemology is the king of disciplines and always has been, it is science's big brother and tells every other discipline what it can and cannot do via the epistemological arsenal (logic which includes maths and stats, rational argument, nominalism, the scientific method and the falsifiability criteria)"* I agree that Epistemology is quite important, it is the main study of the skeptic. My point is not that it is unimportant, merely that Epistemology shows us that science is unjustified. As a skeptic, it seems to me that the study of epistemology leads us to the conclusion that nothing is justified (th-cam.com/video/YNFyQD8zxkM/w-d-xo.html). *"Science and its big brother do not do your most popular word "BELIEF", neither do we do political, psychological, bribes, bias or opinion (subjective knowledge). We just do objective knowledge. Our explanations of the world we live in and ourselves are the best there are. They have survived critical third party peer review and their truth-likeness and explanatory value is the highest. We place them on the shelf marked truth."* I think you do not understand what the word belief means in an epistemic context. Very few philosophers would claim that belief is not a necessary part of knowledge (it may be Plato's definition, but it is still used today). (th-cam.com/video/cxWxGYVVFJ0/w-d-xo.html). Furthermore to claim that science is completely separate from any personal bias or subjective judgement not only seems impossible to prove (you at least have not done anything to prove it), it seems to be disproven by the problem of underdetermination, which you completely fail to address in your comment. The problem is that when an experiment fails to fit our predictions we are underdetermined as to what we should do. Therefore we can only be influenced by personal biases. Science is implicitly biased. That's what this problem shows. If you can object to the problem, feel free, but simply saying "no it's not" is not a convincing argument. As for peer review, the claim is not that a particular study is corrupted or was missed by reviewers, but that the scientific method itself, on which the reviewers base their judgments is flawed. Finally simply because we place something on the shelf marked truth, it does not mean that it is true. (th-cam.com/video/u0EOF56roHI/w-d-xo.html) *"But we never claim that they are encyclopaedic absolute truths. Each and ever one of our explanations can be shot down tomorrow by a better explanation having greater truth-likeness, universality and explanatory value."* The problem, as stated in the video is that it is difficult for us to tell what truth-likeness is or to prove that something that explains more is more likely to be true. Without these important connecting premises the argument falls apart. And the point of the video is that when one theory is shot down we are underdetermined as to which theory to grab onto next. Finally it seems strange to say that somethign can be more or less true. a fundamental law of logic is called the Law of the Excluded Middle, something is either true or not true. pv~p. I doubt this law, but it seems that if you doubt it too you are also waging a war against logic, since without this proposition all of classical logic, and therefore the basis for all of mathematics, will come tumbling down. *"If we were to take an oath it would be to be a critical rational realist. We also only do ONE. There is only one world and therefore only one explanation. I consider that my explanation is the one. "* I'm not sure as to what you are saying here. But if you think that your explanation of the world is the right one, I would simply like to know why. My point in this response is that while you have clearly stated that you disagree with the argument offered, you have failed to object to it, and show why it is wrong.
+Carneades.org I am impressed. Impressed that you came back to me with such detail and impressed that you live in West Africa. My argument against under-determination is that when some new finding is published the whole world of discipline peers are all over it with their scepticism critical rationalism, respect for the truth and independent testing. The originator may have some bias but many of his peers will scrutinise his work and any bias will be exposed. We have had many mischievous scientists but their mischief is always ultimately exposed. Popper's explanation of the scientific method, P1, TS, EE, P2 repeat is only to say that we learn by trial and error. That we begin with a problem P1 (let's say "how do we eradicate Ebola?"), guess what might be a solution TS, test the TS with error elimination EE and in the process get a better understanding of the problem and what to try next P2. Repeat. You can imagine how many repeats were made in many labs around the world before we solved the problem of Ebola. We needed to save lives and we had no time for under-determination. Necessity is the mother of invention.I am on this site and others because a man not far from you recently said "we killed the people of Baga, indeed we killed the people of Baga, as the Lord told us to in his book". The leader of Boko Harem. The challenge of out time is to defeat an ideology that was 1,000 behind best practice when it was created and has made no contribution to man's knowledge of things nor values in the last 900 years. Why attack science that gives us blessing after blessing in the form of health, wealth and happiness?Nice talking to you
+Cult of Personality Just because something has done great things, that does not mean that it is rational. Belief in religion built the pyramids, but that does not make it rational. If you think that being able to do things constitutes knowledge that the theories that underlie those are true, then you are sorely mistaken, or should start believing in ancient Egyptian gods. As to your claim that philosophy is not useful, philosophy invented science (so if you find science useful, then philosophy is useful too). The reason that people still get PhDs (Doctorates in Philosophy) in all fields is that everything that we study today is simply an offshoot of philosophy (th-cam.com/video/ZqOmPbats6w/w-d-xo.html). Furthermore philosophy underlies science. Philosophy of science is what must work to justify or refute the methods of science (th-cam.com/video/54rHYg71AXU/w-d-xo.html). Science used to just be known as "Natural Philosophy". As to employment, philosophers are the ones that ask whether it is better to be employed or to be happy. Personally, I'm a philosopher, I'm employed and I'm happy. Are you?
The best theory conserves as much as possible of the successes of previous theories. That helps decide when an experiment contradicts a theory.
Larry Laudan has the great idea that theories are tested by competition with other theories.
Excellent and troubling video, Carneades.org But I consider science to be a useful provisional model, rather than a reason to believe that X is _truly_ the case. However, hypothesis revision can be rational. This is because reason can be defined as the capacity to reevaluate assumptions based on evidence, and rationality can be defined as the condition of being reasonable. The principle of explosion is one such assumption. If a prediction fails, one could reevaluate the assumptions, make a probabilistic argument, then a new prediction to test. But always remain skeptical about the conclusions.
Potter Suppositionalist I'm not sure how this will help. The question is "how do you rationally reevaluate assumptions based on evidence?" If the theory predicts that a perihelion claims there will be another planet, there is nothing to tell us if it is rational to throw out the laws of movement, or the claim that there is not another planet. Which is reasonable?
Carneades.org That depends on which definition we are using. It seems to me that an essential feature of reason to be able to reevaluate things in general. I think the principle of parsimony can be a useful guide, along with the total body of evidence (excluding any notions of certain knowledge).
*"If the theory predicts that a perihelion claims there will be another planet, there is nothing to tell us if it is rational to throw out the laws of movement, or the claim that there is not another planet."*
It seems reasonable to suspend judgement on both and gather more data. Generally, there are multiple models in physics, covering several likely scenarios. When a confusing discovery is made, we should question all of our assumptions and construct more tests.
This is a scientific skeptical approach, assume all assumptions are false (or at least doubt them and challenge them). I'm not saying this solves the problem, because it seems far worse that everything is based on untestable assumptions. But it is something to work with.
I'd argue science is possibly rational.
Potter Suppositionalist "It seems to me that an essential feature of reason to be able to reevaluate things in general. I think the principle of parsimony can be a useful guide, along with the total body of evidence (excluding any notions of certain knowledge)." The problem is that what is to say that the contradiction does not arise from our use of parsimony as a principle? As if we abandon parsimony, we will lose the contradiction. "It seems reasonable to suspend judgement on both and gather more data." I'm all for suspending judgement. The problem seems to me that once you start, you can't stop. You can't tell if it was one of your theories, one of your ampliative principles or even one of the laws of logic that you should throw out. Once you are faced with contradictory evidence, there's no rational way to choose which to suspend judgement on, the only way to remain ration is to suspend judgement on them all. The point is that once you get here, how will you ever be able to come to any scientific conclusion? I'm fine with the skeptic being rational, but I'm not sure that we can call science rational, if there is no science that can be done rationally (in the sense of forming theories and beliefs not taking actions).
Carneades.org
*"The problem is that what is to say that the contradiction does not arise from our use of parsimony as a principle?"*
Should we hold inconsistency intolerant logic above inconsistency tolerant logic systems? There doesn't seem to be a system for determining which logical principles to use.
*"As if we abandon parsimony, we will lose the contradiction."*
Should we hold the principle of non-contradiction above all other guiding principles? If we didn't have that principle, it could be difficult to confront an argument. But apart from that, why should we hold that principle in the first place?
*"I'm all for suspending judgement. The problem seems to me that once you start, you can't stop. You can't tell if it was one of your theories, one of your ampliative principles or even one of the laws of logic that you should throw out."*
Yet we can still make probabilistic arguments, based on overwhelming evidence and the success rates of competing models which cover all of the above scenarios. This can give an indication of where to direct the investigation. But the questions never end in science.
*"Once you are faced with contradictory evidence, there's no rational way to choose which to suspend judgement on, the only way to remain ration is to suspend judgement on them all."*
A good skeptical scientists questions all assumptions. Any principle can be questioned and subjected to revision. But central to the notion of reason is the ability to reevaluate assumptions. There are methods available to demarcate likely from unlikely possibilities.
*"The point is that once you get here, how will you ever be able to come to any scientific conclusion?"*
I think we can make statements and arguments which involve uncertainty and probability. This provides motivation to study operations of nature in specific directions. The Bayesian approach helps us determine the probability of a hypothesis without certainty.
*"I'm fine with the skeptic being rational."*
I think as long as we are willing to reevaluate assumptions and avoid dogmatism, we are likely to be rational. This goes for all of our guiding principles and methodologies. It's possible a skeptical scientist could be rational.
Are you implicitly implying that the main motivation behind Kepler's and Galileo's acceptance of Heliocentrism over Geocentrism is their political/cultural affiliation?
+Gemparkzz Political/cultural affiliation? No. Personal biases or preferences? Sure. Let's take the mountains on the moon as an example. We have a set of contradictory propositions.
1) The objects of the heavens are perfect spheres.
2) I see mountains on the moon with a telescope.
From this, you can doubt that your telescope works, you can doubt your own vision, you can posit that there is a layer in between us and the moon that creates this illusion, you can aver that God is making this illusion to test your faith, or you can deny that the objects of the heavens are perfect spheres. The point is that without further experiment there is nothing science can do to tell us which of the options is correct. There is no rational decision process. You can do more tests, but the option that God is testing your faith, will always elude testing. The point is that the only way that we can choose between these options is our own irrational bias since we have no rational way to choose. This bias may take the form of political or cultural affiliations or not. But that doe snot make it any more rational.
Carneades.org Now i'm sad :( In your opinion, can the conception of reality be objectified?
Gemparkzz don't think so
I reject this reasoning absolutely. Just because no theory is completely falsifiable doesnt mean they are all equally true. One theory is the most true and logic could help you decide that.
Lakatos provides an ambliatuve method for revising beliefs or baseline theories. If a we revise a belief in such a way that it leads to new theories, new predictions, and or new knowledge then the revision is progressive.
Now, of course you would say that Lakatos' idea is also part of the web of beliefs and should be brought into question. But, progressing knowledge is the base goal of theories.
Occam's razor is grounded in deduction. A simple way of saying it is that unnecessary elements of a theory are unneeded.
I have two questions regarding the subject of your video:
1:can't the problem of underdetermination can be solved simply by probability theory? I mean the thing that has the least datapoints will therefore be the first to question, I mean you won't get to absolute truth, but you won't have to resort to irrational means.
2: also can't you just put a sort of domain of applicability onto that web. by which I mean, that the web shown in the video can then only apply to things that are in question and not on logic rationality and reason -- the more fundamental parts of the system.
1: There is a system of probability that attempts to resolve some of these problems known as Bayesian Epistemology. Here's the series: th-cam.com/video/YRz8deiJ57E/w-d-xo.html
2: The problem is that logic is in question, there are multiple types of logic and it may be that the contradiction derives from them.
It sounds like you would say the mere possibility of an alternative explanation renders any theory irrational.
I think its more of: renders whether or not the theory is true irrational.
What do you think of Karl Popper's response to Quine and naive falsification?
I find it unconvincing, I think that Kuhn provides some good arguments against Popper's claims, but I have not fully investigated it. We will be covering one if not both of those philosophers in the Four Weeks of Famous Philosophers Series. th-cam.com/video/4bEhUCX8nkg/w-d-xo.html
"If two people might reach two contradictory conclusions after correctly following a process, it is irrational."
In the case of an experiment are we talking about the physical conclusion of the experiment, or the individuals' interpretation based on the theory, and experimentation? Albert Einstein and Neils Bohr spring to mind.
As to the two storey building on Churchill Street:
1) Throw out the original belief - seems the best option, all else being equal.
2) Changing your belief about your location is the No True Scotman Fallacy in all but name.
3) There are differences in storey height - I'm in a room with a 9-foot stud (oo-er, missus), I've been in rooms with 15-foot studs. The point being, this is empirically verifiable, albeit you may need to go inside the offending building to confirm it.
4) Change your mind about any number of other beliefs? But wouldn't it make sense to start with those that seem to directly impinge upon the matter at hand?
So, the question is, HOW is there no rational way to decide between these options? Surely establishing the facts of the matters that underpin the assumption is a perfectly rational way to decide this... or is the issue that there is no way to formulate 'check your assumptions' logically? (Which I suppose is the point of this video in combination with the last.)...
From whence came the belief that Churchill's Street only has buildings two storeys in height? If you were told, maybe they were wrong; if you ascertained it for yourself, maybe someone has added a storey to their building.
Does not your comment about throwing out deeper beliefs, beliefs that hold true in other circumstances, make the point that the only belief you can throw out is the one about two-storey buildings on Churchill's Street (a recent conjunction)... is it not rational to retain the beliefs that have served you well until now, and revise the belief directly contradicted by the evidence - the one that has the least above it (with regard to weight of experience). Indeed, this is what you'd have to do if three people each hold one of those major options as their choice for which belief to adopt (much as Einstein and Bohr did).
None of which undermines what the SSK has to say, because they may be right in certain circumstances, but they are unlikely to be right in all, or even many cases.
Ultimately, if we can ascertain that we are on Churchill's Street, and that all of the houses are indeed two storeys, we can hold the belief. If, however, we took a wrong turn in the dark (or have been driven by a rubbish cab driver), we have to adjust our belief about our location (and the belief about Churchill's Street remains, because our location is a regularly updated belief). Or we can check to see if there has been any recent building work that would justify a change of belief.
Is the psychologically compelling choice necessarily the wrong choice? With the exception of those that specialise in quelling cognitive dissonance in service of beliefs that they find comforting, most individuals will revise the newest belief first (such as their current location), unless that leads to a contradiction... and if they are an active participant in seeking truth then the ongoing recursion will eventually resolve the matter in the modification of a (probably auxiliary) prior belief.
I want to suggest that we can split a belief into two, where one holds true in those circumstances encountered until now, and the "new" belief being that it doesn't hold true in a given circumstance (i.e. I before E, except after C, except were 'EI' is pronounced 'ay' (e.g. eight and neighbour), and except were the word comes more recently from a Romance language (e.g. concierge or Hacienda), and except where the words is a known exception (e.g. weird and science), etc.). This splitting would not upset the web of beliefs (ampliative or otherwise) and would resolve both the 'location' and 'number of storeys' problems in your narrative, because you could split both beliefs out from their underpinning beliefs, with a caveat of 'except for now', and then either retain the split revision, or re-concatenate the split-out revision once you'd ascertained the truth of location and number of storeys. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that you could instantiate this idea using an associationist learning network to replicate the possible mechanism in a brain, relying on neurons, axons, dendrites, Hebb's law, etc.
COEXISTential There seem to be a number of things going on here. To conclusions, I'm talking about beliefs, propositions, theories that are formed. Now off to Churchill's Street. Assessing the origins of beliefs only gives us more things to deny not less. If, for example, I formed the belief that there are no buildings higher than 2 stories, because I walked all the way down Churchill's street and I saw no such building, then if I choose to throw out this belief over others, I will still be underdetermined as to whether I should throw out the belief that I was on Churchill's street at the time, or that I did not notice the building, or that I did not walk down the whole street... and so on. "is it not rational to retain the beliefs that have served you well until now, and revise the belief directly contradicted by the evidence - the one that has the least above it (with regard to weight of experience)" No it's not, as people could, (as we note in the definition of rational) have been served well by different beliefs, so they could come to different conclusions. Therefore relying on personal bias is not a rational way to choose what t believe. And if you say that, "that's the only way you can believe anything, or make a choice, you beg the question against the skeptic, who does not see a way to make such a choice and stay rational. "If we can ascertain that we are on Churchill's Street, and that all of the houses are indeed two storeys, we can hold the belief" To assume that we will at some point know which belief to doubt, is impossible. What piece of information will allow you to deny the hypothesis that all of the buildings on Churchill's street are no taller than 2 stories? . .Is the psychologically ...prior belief." This seems correct as to the way that people most often reorganize beliefs, but simply because that is the way we do it, does not mean anything about the truth of those beliefs. . .The problem with your solution is that it would require an infinite disjuction and there is nothing to say that a new rule will hold in it's stated situations, or even determine what those situations might be. Let's say I hold the rule that I always comes before E. Then I encounter the word neighbor. Either I could conclude that E comes before I when followed by ghbor or I could conclude that E comes before I when preceded by n, or when sounding like 'ay' or when John spells it, but he's horrible at spelling, or in your dictionary, but your dictionary is wrong, or does not represent my dialect correctly. It seems that there are an infinite number of conclusions that you could draw and none of them are sufficiently determined by the evidence.
I'm struggling to understand this. By this same argument couldn't you say something like "It's rational to believe the Earth is flat" and conclude that science is irrational? Wouldn't the claim that a skyscraper has only two stories be its own hypothesis? Why wouldn't we go back and retest previous theories if we thought they might be false?
MrTweej You seem to be missing the point. We are not saying that it is rational to believe that the earth is flat. We are saying that in using the best science you can, you are able to come to different conclusions based on the same information. The point is that if you go back to test a previous theory, you are still relying on other theories and if it leads to a contradiction you don't know which to trust or distrust. You should check out the previous video in the series for more information th-cam.com/video/-9NuFeNoFeo/w-d-xo.html
Carneades.org "We are saying that in using the best science you can, you are able to come to different conclusions based on the same information."
-Which is why scientist test/demonstrate the information to be true and use already known information/evidence to support that.(If it contradicts, adapt to the new evidence/information. We are talking about *scientific* theories, not your elementary school project "theory"). Now speculation on the unknown, sure, different conclusions. But that's not really a good argument against science at all.
"The point is that if you go back to test a previous theory, you are still relying on other theories and if it leads to a contradiction you don't know which to trust or distrust."
-You could also say "well if you are testing the laws of logic, you also have to rely on the other laws of logic" it's just a nonsensical statement. "if you are using math, you have to use the rules of math" Like seriously.....what a poor objection.
Also, theories isn't the word you want to use, laws are. Theories can "support" each other in the end, but they don't uphold each other.
-more sever lack of understanding of science.
I do not see how new evidence can cast doubt on the principles of logic. If it turns out that some logical principles are wrong I imagine it would have to be demonstrated by logical proofs, likewise with Occam's razor - if one wants to undermine our understanding of probability, they would have to use mathematical proofs, and if one wants to undermine our factual beliefs (e.g. elephants live in Africa), they have to use empirical evidence. But it doesn't make sense to me that one would use empirical evidence to subvert logical principles.
There are two questions for a logical system, whether it is internally consistent, something that could be disproven with logical proofs, and whether it accurately represents the world (e.g. if we discover that some statements can be both true and false at the same time, like an electron being both in one place and not in that place at the same time) we might say that our logical system is internally fine, but fails to map onto our world, and we need a non-classical logic system (think euclidean vs non euclidean geometry for describing different surfaces, if we learned we were dealing with a flat surface, that empirical fact would tell us something about which mathematical principles fit a given situation the best).
@@CarneadesOfCyrene I suppose that makes sense, although I don't know much physics and I don't know (I'm skeptical) if it's really a flaw in logic and not just the shattering of a certain illusion, the illusion being an emergent theory (whereas a more fundamental theory remains fine). Edit: I'm talking about the electron.
@@CarneadesOfCyrene I pricked up my ears when the possiblity of denying Law of excluded middle. But suppose I insist on the law, and offer an alternative - we think electrons can be in more than one place at the same time is because we don't understand what electrons really are.
+Nihilist I'm an instrumentalist at the end of the day. I use it because it works, but that doe snot mean that I believe it. watch?=moeaEMB8S9Q
But that would be ignoring that spectrum that varies from belief to knowledge. What we desire as rational beings is justified true belief, which is a belief, of the past, present, and of how reality functions.
I thought that your definition of irrational here would be better put under the category of non-rational. Irrational, is when you find a contradiction or an inconsistency, and say that you believe all your claims anyway.
I guess if you define rationality as deductive logic only, your conclusion follows. But some philosophers believe in a wider version of rationality (I have Kant in mind). Then this reductio ad absurdum (I assume this is all constructed as a reductio ad absurdum because you hold no beliefs) does not lead to the conclusion, because you have not assumed the opponent's definition of rationality.
jimbouzoukas I'm not sure I know exactly what rationality you are referring to. If you have another definition, please offer it. I have a series on inductive rationality and Bayesian Epistemology right now, but as I will demonstrate in the final objection video this will be plagued by the same problems.
Carneades.org th-cam.com/video/YRz8deiJ57E/w-d-xo.html
I don't see any logical system that is rational under those parameters. I think that would make the definition useless
What about Occam's razor?
In addition to Occam's razor, there's a number of criteria we use to evaluate theories, such as accuracy, consistency, scope, and fruitfulness. The issue is that, our very adherence to these criteria could be thrown out in the face of disconfirming evidence.
I'm a pragmatist myself, along the lines of Quine, but it is concerning.
@@gdn5001 ...now I have to re-watch the video and then try to respond...
@@chrissidiras No problem, my bad lol
Check 11:20
You might as well revise your belief about irrationality. So science is not rational, nor irrational considering that I might have different definition for rationality/irrationality than yours. And what does it mean to have a definition about something? What does it mean for something to "mean" anything?
So we go ad infinitum here.
+Roger Bacon Therefore skepticism? If so I agree. (th-cam.com/video/S2sK_EOKb1Q/w-d-xo.html)
The protestations made by the SSK are uncomfortably close to the truth. There are cases in Science history (e.g the initial skepticism regarding discovery of Pulsars).
On the other hand (quite separately) I take issue with the presenter's reasoning. He presupposes that the choice to believe one hypothesis instead of a contradictory alternative, when both are consistent with the evidence, is rational if and only if it is an inescapable conclusion inferred from the evidence; it is irrational otherwise.This is a rather extreme understanding of (ir)rational, not held by most people or by scientists themselves. A rational choice is one that is both supported by the evidence and by arguments that the reasoner judges to be credible, and defendable to others. Without either being inescapable, it may be that both choices are rational (implying a need for more evidence), only one is, or possibly neither are convincing. The possibility of a rationally chosen hypothesis does not rule out it being incorrect.
So if a Nobel Laureate presents a startling new hypothesis in their field, consistent with some experiments, it would be rational (or at least prudent) for other scientists in the field to consider it seriously and irrational to dismiss it out of hand. But if a junior researcher presented the same hypothesis, it would be rational to be skeptical. They might not consider it irrational to dismiss it out of hand.
1) Seems to me you are basing your view of rationality on contradiction: even one contradiction makes a concept or derivation irrational. And as contradictions (to me) seem to rely exclusively on the LEM, symbolized as ~(p&~p) = T , then surely your views of rationality rely on and only apply to systems where the LEM applies.
Consider a universe with only two people and thus LEM applies: it is irrational in this universe to believe that one is a child and a father and the other person is also a child and a father... if one is the father, the other must be a child; if there are only two people, I cannot be a child and a father to the same person at the same time; this is in contradiction and irrational.
However, in a universe with three people, LEM no longer applies: it is now rational to believe that one person is both child and father since they can be one to one and the other to the other; put another way it is not irrational to believe that a person is both a child and a father.
Thus, unlike as you state towards the end, this is not a case that one is forced to believe a contradiction by not having LEM but rather that by not having LEM, contradictions are avoided or, worse yet, harder to define than simply as ~(p&~p)
Thus it seems to me that a view on rationality based on contradiction forces one to accept and use LEM in order for contradiction to be well defined.
2) Also, I don't know why Quine's rationality must be a OR choice, as in either we throw out the experiment or we throw out the theory.
Would not the rational (or, from your videos again, the objective bayesian) thing to do is replace OR with AND such that each option (throw out H or throw out E) has a belief of 0.5 and then explore both options as a further experiment? This would also nullify your objection at 7:00 since all rational people would have the same 0.5 degree of belief in all such options and thus all rational people would be in agreement.... as well as the objections of the SSK at 8:00 since all options are chosen, gendered and non-gendered for example, but each only given a (total number of H and E options)^-1 degree of belief.
3)"It's simply a fact of psychology which aspect you choose to revise"
I'm not sure what you mean by psychology since in the 250+ videos I've seen of yours, you've not mentioned it once in relation to philosophy, your skepticism, or your POV.
As such, I will attempt to counter by saying that if I have a rule that I abide 100% of the time, that "I will always change my mind based on evidence", then is that psychology?
Or the rule "Anytime I've a choice to dismiss H or E, I will flip a coin: heads I dismiss H and tails I dismiss E", then is that rule psychological (never mind skepticism regarding randomness)?
What about my objective bayesian stance in 2); is that psychological?
Psychologically, I could argue these make for any of these decisions to be the "easiest" since I always have one rule to deal with given infinite possibilities, I have to have a way to break that symmetry and choose one or forever remain skeptically stagnant.
If these are not the psychologies you implied, then I present this as showing that there are ways (such as my examples here and my point 2 above) which, IMO, you can rationally decide between the two.
4) I think your discomfort at 10:30 is justified. After all, science rely on deductive logic so it stands to reason that deductive logic ALONE should not be able to distinguish between alternative sciences (Godel's incompleteness I think?). So, while I don't see him as expanding the definition of rationality (it still is clear in my head, at this point, that it's ultimately tied into contradiction), I do see him adding a system *outside* science to hopefully help distinguish between alternatives *inside* of science.
I can't help but draw the analogy to contour integrals where, integrals that are impossible/irrational (in the philosophical not numerical) in the Real number line are possible/rational by going "outside" the real number line, doing calculations on the imaginary number line, and then getting an answer in the Real number line... in effect, we stepped outside the reals into the imaginaries to do a calculation impossible with reals alone, and then returned back to the reals since that is what is physically relevant. Not sure how good the analogy is but it sure seems similar to me.
To your first point, I think that you fail to understand the LEM. It does not claim that you cannot be both a father and a child, for example, but rather that the following statements cannot be true at the same time: John is a father. It is not the case that John is a Father. Are there systems which object to the LEM and do not take it as an axiom, certainly. However most systems do, including the classical logic that underpins science.
As for 2, the problem is (as I feel I noted somewhere in my Bayesian Epistemology series) that there are an infinite number of possibilities (skeptical scenarios and so forth), given any particular contradiction, so we cannot assign any non-zero degree of belief to any of the options.
In regards to 3, let me clarify what I mean by "it is simply a fact of psychology". Perhaps a clearer way to state this would be, "it is based on an irrational proclivity which belief you choose to revise". That feeds more into my global skepticism picture (see my videos on In Defense of Skepticism).
Whatever rule you have, or personal method of deciding things that you posses, it is not an element of the scientific method. Your first example, that you change your mind "based on evidence" is unclear as you fail to define evidence, or what you mean by change your mind. Does evidence lead you to suspend judgement? Does it lead you to believe the negation of you hypothesis? Does it lead you to discount previous evidence? The coin flip, as noted above will pose quite a problem since there are an infinite number of possible beliefs to doubt to remain consistent.
All of this is a moot point, since, just like occam's razor, no matter what "rule" you come up with, that rule is just as subject to doubt as the evidence itself. If we arrive at a contradiction, we can just as easily doubt the rule.
As for 4, science famously does not rely on deductive logic alone, in fact, it in principle cannot (see Hume: th-cam.com/video/sd8cxXfPJU4/w-d-xo.html). Godel's incompleteness tells us that even if it did, no deductive system can be complete, sound and do basic arithmetic. The problem with taking a system outside of science to decide the conflict is that such a system has no more chance of being rational than science does. We could just as easily throw out a rule of that system instead of the conflicting evidence to neutralize the contradiction.
1)
"To your first point,"
That is what I'm saying though, the LEM underpins the definition of contradiction and contradictions underpins the definition of (ir)rationality: hence LEM underpins your concept of (ir)rationality. Thus, as you
"Are there systems which object to the LEM and do not take it as an axiom, certainly. However most systems do, including the classical logic that underpins science."
I would LOVE to enter into a category theory vs. set theory answer to this question. LEM, as I understand category theory, is a VERY restrictive condition on logic and one that once relaxed, leads to much more flexible systems. Heyting Algebra without LEM is the basis of Intuitivitic Logic the same way that Boolean Algebra is with LEM.
Maybe you have a video along these lines!?!
2)
"As for 2, the problem is (as I feel I noted somewhere in my Bayesian Epistemology series) that there are an infinite number of possibilities (skeptical scenarios and so forth), given any particular contradiction, so we cannot assign any non-zero degree of belief to any of the options."
Yes, but only a finite number of non-trivial possibilities accessible at any one instant. In Category Theory, we bundle all the non-trivial solutions into an equivalence class and then deal with the class not the solution. Thus runaway truths like given p, then p& (pvq) & (pvqvr) & (pvqvrv...)&....
...get reduced to the equivalence class p and now we work with p as an equivalence class instead of a element or member.
3) "Whatever rule you have, or personal method of deciding things that you posses, it is not an element of the scientific method. "
Yet the scientific method is exactly that, a personal method of deciding things. So are you accepting the SM as a rule but dismissing all others? That seems rather subjective.
"The coin flip, as noted above will pose quite a problem since there are an infinite number of possible beliefs to doubt to remain consistent."
Let me for the moment forgo your other questions and focus on this; if the other questions are important by all means re-ask and I will address.
So, the coin flip doesn't have an infinite number of beliefs as I see it. What else is there to believe but that the coin will be heads (p) or tails (q)? And if I make a decision based on p for example, how is my decision "infinitized" by having it also be true, after p is shown to be true, that pvq is still also true? Or pvqv~q, etc? All of these are tautologies, but they all "reduce" to the simple fact p. So I'm still unsure how a finite event (coin flip) can lead to infinite tautologies and thus prevent us from using a coin flip to make decisions rationally.
"All of this is a moot point, since, just like occam's razor, no matter what "rule" you come up with, that rule is just as subject to doubt as the evidence itself. If we arrive at a contradiction, we can just as easily doubt the rule."
IF.
I am not convinced that there is a contradiction in the rule "when in doubt, flip a coin" since the infinite truths that seem to be the basis of your countering that rule is, to me, a moot point in light of equivalence classes.
4)"The problem with taking a system outside of science to decide the conflict is that such a system has no more chance of being rational than science does."
As I've come to believe (and please don't take this as a derogatory or dismissive statement, merely a conclusion on my part, as I clearly enjoy our repartee), I think your skeptical stance requiring equality instead of isomorphism is the crux of a lot of your paradoxes or objections.
Thus, if rationality is based on searching for truth, then one can (IMO) never be rational. This would seem to be the tenor of A LOT of your videos but I would argue that is a result not of being skeptic, but on being an absolute skeptic seeking absolute truth.
In effect, you've set the bar so high (TRUTH!) that IMO it can only be met conceptually and never practically.
I haven't watched you defense of skepticism videos; think I'll do that now (and your 4 weeks of philosophers series) to get a better idea of your stance but I've seen 250+ videos so my conclusion is, even if not exactly true, then maybe isomorphic with "a" truth. ;)
I'm not really happy with your argument against Lauden. Although Lauden definition of "good reasoning" is fuzzy, it stills follows a set of rules. But in your argument, when faced to an evidence that brings contradictions to the theory x, you asume that he might forget about saud rules and decide psychologically which theory to keep. While in practice that COULD happen, you would still be arguing against decisions taken psychologically and NOT against Lauden's rules. It's like if I would argue against a skeptic saying that come what may, she might decide to use logic and thus be potentially wrong. I can't, trhough that reasoning, asume that skepticism is wrong since I attacked the particular case where the skeptic broke it's own rules. It's the same when someone following Lauden's rules suddenly brakes them to reason psychologically. You can't conclude Lauden's rules are wrong.
I think that the arguments against Lauden should instead be taken when filtering what is considered or not "good reasoning".
Please excuse me if I understood your argument incorrectly
Alejandro Quiñones "But in your argument, when faced to an evidence that brings contradictions to the theory x, you asume that he might forget about saud rules and decide psychologically which theory to keep." Incorrect, I am saying that there is nothing in the rules that does not allow you to deny one of the rules when faced with a contradiction. And even if there were, that could just as easily be denied along with the offensive rule. The point is not that Laudan will deny one of his rules, but that one could without arriving at a contradiction and arrive at a different conclusion. If two different conclusions COULD be reached without contradiction, then the method is irrational. The point is that the LNC demands that we get rid of contradictory beliefs if we have them. There is nothing that says that we can't just get rid of the LNC. That will also render the system consistent (though we need to have a new understanding of consistent). I hope that this is clear. We're not saying that the rules are wrong, just that there is no rule that is so sacrosanct that we would be irrational to throw it out. If the laws of logic led to a contradiction (as I have argued that they do) we need to throw one of them out. The laws of logic themselves all claim that you cannot throw any of them out, and that you must throw one out. That's a contradiction which will not be resolved by keeping them, only be eliminating them. Just because the theory asserts that you should keep it does not mean that you should any more than an ampliative principle asserting that you should keep it means that you should.
Wtf. 9k views and only 200 likes.
You make it sound as though everything is arbitrary. There are conclusions that are better than other conclusions. They guy who says that the building has three stories and therefore my belief about the buildings on this street is more probably wrong, is more right than the guy who says that it's a big two story or that geography ceases to work in my presence. And this, as you mention, can be empirically verified so I don't see how that's not rational.
Why could you not scientificly research the fact that you were indeed in the right street and the building was indeed 3 stories tall? Within our human capacities, why could we not make a rational decision? Does the fact that we can never know for sure mean that we cannot make rational decisions? I'm thinking this whole video is irrational...
+Kastelot If you scientifically research it and discover that your research conflicts with your previously held belief, you are underdetermined between either throwing out your previously held belief or doubting your scientific research. You are not required to do either. If we say that there is some other criterion that says that you must believe the results of scientific research, then that criterion itself can further be the subject of doubt as opposed to your original belief.
+Carneades.org Hmm alright. In the scientific method you would throw out the original belief because it is proven wrong. Because it is a belief and not a scientific fact. But you would argue that we could also disbelief the results gotten from our scientific methods/logics. Maybe they could just contradict without one of them being wrong... Right?
Without being unkind. There is a thread running through all your presentations that I have viewed so far to knock science and its big brother epistemology any which way. Are you funded by Boko Harem (keep out western education)? You even take Socrates famous phrase "I know nothing" as your motto knowing how easily it can be misinterpreted. You knock logic, maths, statistics, the scientific method, the demarcation criteria, reason........... You even go for some apology and in the middle of this presentation you indulge in some conspiracy theory. You even knock science for practicing induction when you know that it was binned by Hume in 1739. You will take any ammunition you can find as long as it might help your attack on reason and science. You must be US based. Without sounding authoritative, science doesn't do omniscience, this is where we are today: we stand on the shoulders of giants and see further, we have a revered history of giants in science and epistemology, philosophy gave birth to science or natural philosophy, you could say that every scientific discipline is a philosophical discipline doing the business of cosmology in its own specialism, epistemology is the king of disciplines and always has been, it is science's big brother and tells every other discipline what it can and cannot do via the epistemological arsenal (logic which includes maths and stats, rational argument, nominalism, the scientific method and the falsifiability criteria). Science and its big brother do not do your most popular word "BELIEF", neither do we do political, psychological, bribes, bias or opinion (subjective knowledge). We just do objective knowledge. Our explanations of the world we live in and ourselves are the best there are. They have survived critical third party peer review and their truth-likeness and explanatory value is the highest. We place them on the shelf marked truth. But we never claim that they are encyclopaedic absolute truths. Each and ever one of our explanations can be shot down tomorrow by a better explanation having greater truth-likeness, universality and explanatory value. If we were to take an oath it would be to be a critical rational realist. We also only do ONE. There is only one world and therefore only one explanation. I consider that my explanation is the one. Comments welcome.
+David Lilley It seems to me that you have asserted your position clearly, but have failed to back it up in any way. If you want to disagree with the argument in the video, you need object to it, not simply state that it is wrong.
Now, let's be clear, skepticism is the basis of Western education. I quote Socrates because he was the first skeptic and the father of philosophy. Being a skeptic, however, does not mean simply that you question those beliefs that you already do not believe, it means that you question everything, science and logic included. Note, that when I say I am a skeptic, I am talking about philosophical skepticism (th-cam.com/video/S2sK_EOKb1Q/w-d-xo.html) an ancient position which has in many ways through its role in influencing Descartes and other Early Modern thinkers helped create the scientific method. With that cleared up, let's take on your points one by one.
*"you indulge in some conspiracy theory"*
I am presenting a position that is being actively debated by philosophers of science. If you listen I do not endorse the most extreme of those views. It is merely a possible consequence of the demonstration that science is irrational.
*"science for practicing induction when you know that it was binned by Hume in 1739"*
Simply because Hume revealed the problem of induction to us, it does not mean that many conclusions of science are not still based upon induction. Science still requires the uniformity of nature for any predictions to hold water.
*"You will take any ammunition you can find as long as it might help your attack on reason and science."*
I'm a skeptic. I doubt everything. Not for the sake of doubting but because I hold claims up to a high bar of justification. I have quite a few videos questioning religion and the existence of God as well (th-cam.com/video/9ZDhra539Ww/w-d-xo.html).
*"You must be US based."*
Though I see no way in which it has bearing on the conversation, I live in West Africa.
*"we stand on the shoulders of giants and see further, we have a revered history of giants in science and epistemology"*
I highly encourage that you check out Thomas Kuhn one of the most influential philosophers and historians of science of the last century (up there with Popper, though I would say quite critical of Popper's work). He has some great arguments as to why the theories of these giants get torn down every time there is a paradigm shift. th-cam.com/video/kmj_mFxvj5w/w-d-xo.html
*"you could say that every scientific discipline is a philosophical discipline doing the business of cosmology in its own specialism, epistemology is the king of disciplines and always has been, it is science's big brother and tells every other discipline what it can and cannot do via the epistemological arsenal (logic which includes maths and stats, rational argument, nominalism, the scientific method and the falsifiability criteria)"*
I agree that Epistemology is quite important, it is the main study of the skeptic. My point is not that it is unimportant, merely that Epistemology shows us that science is unjustified. As a skeptic, it seems to me that the study of epistemology leads us to the conclusion that nothing is justified (th-cam.com/video/YNFyQD8zxkM/w-d-xo.html).
*"Science and its big brother do not do your most popular word "BELIEF", neither do we do political, psychological, bribes, bias or opinion (subjective knowledge). We just do objective knowledge. Our explanations of the world we live in and ourselves are the best there are. They have survived critical third party peer review and their truth-likeness and explanatory value is the highest. We place them on the shelf marked truth."*
I think you do not understand what the word belief means in an epistemic context. Very few philosophers would claim that belief is not a necessary part of knowledge (it may be Plato's definition, but it is still used today). (th-cam.com/video/cxWxGYVVFJ0/w-d-xo.html). Furthermore to claim that science is completely separate from any personal bias or subjective judgement not only seems impossible to prove (you at least have not done anything to prove it), it seems to be disproven by the problem of underdetermination, which you completely fail to address in your comment. The problem is that when an experiment fails to fit our predictions we are underdetermined as to what we should do. Therefore we can only be influenced by personal biases. Science is implicitly biased. That's what this problem shows. If you can object to the problem, feel free, but simply saying "no it's not" is not a convincing argument. As for peer review, the claim is not that a particular study is corrupted or was missed by reviewers, but that the scientific method itself, on which the reviewers base their judgments is flawed. Finally simply because we place something on the shelf marked truth, it does not mean that it is true. (th-cam.com/video/u0EOF56roHI/w-d-xo.html)
*"But we never claim that they are encyclopaedic absolute truths. Each and ever one of our explanations can be shot down tomorrow by a better explanation having greater truth-likeness, universality and explanatory value."*
The problem, as stated in the video is that it is difficult for us to tell what truth-likeness is or to prove that something that explains more is more likely to be true. Without these important connecting premises the argument falls apart. And the point of the video is that when one theory is shot down we are underdetermined as to which theory to grab onto next. Finally it seems strange to say that somethign can be more or less true. a fundamental law of logic is called the Law of the Excluded Middle, something is either true or not true. pv~p. I doubt this law, but it seems that if you doubt it too you are also waging a war against logic, since without this proposition all of classical logic, and therefore the basis for all of mathematics, will come tumbling down.
*"If we were to take an oath it would be to be a critical rational realist. We also only do ONE. There is only one world and therefore only one explanation. I consider that my explanation is the one. "*
I'm not sure as to what you are saying here. But if you think that your explanation of the world is the right one, I would simply like to know why. My point in this response is that while you have clearly stated that you disagree with the argument offered, you have failed to object to it, and show why it is wrong.
+Carneades.org I am impressed. Impressed that you came back to me with such detail and impressed that you live in West Africa. My argument against under-determination is that when some new finding is published the whole world of discipline peers are all over it with their scepticism critical rationalism, respect for the truth and independent testing. The originator may have some bias but many of his peers will scrutinise his work and any bias will be exposed. We have had many mischievous scientists but their mischief is always ultimately exposed. Popper's explanation of the scientific method, P1, TS, EE, P2 repeat is only to say that we learn by trial and error. That we begin with a problem P1 (let's say "how do we eradicate Ebola?"), guess what might be a solution TS, test the TS with error elimination EE and in the process get a better understanding of the problem and what to try next P2. Repeat. You can imagine how many repeats were made in many labs around the world before we solved the problem of Ebola. We needed to save lives and we had no time for under-determination. Necessity is the mother of invention.I am on this site and others because a man not far from you recently said "we killed the people of Baga, indeed we killed the people of Baga, as the Lord told us to in his book". The leader of Boko Harem. The challenge of out time is to defeat an ideology that was 1,000 behind best practice when it was created and has made no contribution to man's knowledge of things nor values in the last 900 years. Why attack science that gives us blessing after blessing in the form of health, wealth and happiness?Nice talking to you