If the axioms are acceptable, and the deduction proceeds without error, then the conclusions have to be accepted.

There are things in mathematics that cannot conceivably be tested. Consider the Banach-Tarski paradox (actually a theorem) where a ball is disassembled into a finite number of pieces and then these are assembled to form two balls identical to the original. It is a true theorem of mathematics but I see no way of testing it.

How do you go about "testing" Cantor's diagonal argument in mathematics?

How do you "test" Godel's theorem?

Empiricism is not the source of ALL knowledge. I'm sorry if this is "stinky" to you. If empiricism is your god, maybe you would benefit from reading Kant or taking a class in mathematical proofs.

Also, I never mentioned religion or creationism. I'm not theist, if that's what you were thinking.

I only said that one proposition appears to be a tautology, not ALL of evolution.

It seems to be impossible to falsify the statement "the fittest traits/genes are selected" since I see no way of defining "fit" ahead of time except to say it is an attribute of those things which prove to be selected in the end. If you view the proposition as merely a definition for "fitness" then I see no problem.

If you think what I'm saying is nutty, just look what Popper had to say! "Popper (1976, 151) said, "Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory but a metaphysical research programme."" - http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA211_1.html

I think Popper later retracted this opinion, but I find some of his argumentation to be hard to follow.

double post

maybe a mod can delete the all the duplicate posts.

I can tell when theists know they have nothing when their first posts are not about their particular book, but attack science.

Lets cut to the chase here.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A NON MATERIAL THINKING ENTITY by any name.

Thoughts require a material process, just like running requires legs. Thus claims of disembodied brains with no brain and no material, are ALL absurd claims. Dress the skunk up in a tux it is still a skunk(bad claim).

If one can accept that there is no ocean god named Neptune, and one can accept that there is no god creating lightening and thunder named Thor, then it should not be a stretch for one to consider that they are doing what humans have always done, invent god/s because the idea of having a super hero save them is appealing.

Attacking science does not work. Trying to retrofit it to suit your own personal desires does not work. If others here don't mind the walk down the Yellow Brick Road, they can pick this apart. I don't like the convoluted dance.

I look at it quite simply. If someone has something credible to demonstrate, they would be at the patent office, they could teach it like DNA and entropy and mitosis, and they could get a Nobel Prize in science.

What we do have in reality is a continuing graveyard of gods that humans invent and later discard for newer myth.

And that is just the scientific absurdity of postulating an invisible friend. The morally bankrupt god of the bible, is enough, by itself, to reject the idea of worshiping such a being, even if we could prove it to be real.

Short and sweet, no need to dance around the core of any issue with convoluted needless tripe.

I have knowledge that people claim they have been abducted by UFOs. I have knowledge of people claiming Big Foot. And people have written books and shows about those myths. So what.

Woo is woo, be it the ancient monotheistic god/s of Abraham, to the more current claptrap of pantheism.

When a theist tries to argue science to me would be like a Star Trec fan trying to convince me that Klingon's are real.

Elaborate junk is still junk.

I think this is astonishingly close-minded. As I mentioned, Austrian economics has occupied an orthodox position in the past, though it might not currently be mainstream. The Nobel prize in economics was awarded for this "BS" to Hayek who was one of the few economists to predict the great depression. If you want to see real BS, look to mainstream economics; one of the major guys actually advocated having a housing bubble. Their application of the scientific method is laughable. Through your dogmatic bias you are denying yourself access to economic understanding and it's a shame. I can't force you, but I recommend you read Economics In One Lesson, Human Action, and finally The Ultimate Foundation of Economics and come back here and tell me it's "BS".

In opposing theism you should strive for truth, not retreat into a cargo cult scientism worship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism

http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block168.html

"Austrian Thymologists Who Predicted the Housing Bubble"

I think the main reason it isn't mainstream is that, unfortunately, many people share your fascination with scientism and are addicted to mathsturbation (maths = mathmatics; turbation from Latin turbidis meaning to to mix up, make cloudy or muddy), i.e. childishly playing with numbers. Every science has to be modeled after physics. Every field has to use positivist epistemology or it isn't "real science". The problem in economics is that there are no fundamental constants and no fixed relations. There is no means to compare or sum the subjective valuations of two different people or even to compare the subjective valuations of the same person at different times. An empirically verified formula is valid only for the group of people and heterogenous goods and market conditions present at a particular time and place in history.

I'm curious why you're focusing on economics but are silent on the subject of mathematics. Cantor and Godel didn't appear to use the scientific method. Does that not make them mystic crackpots? Or do you agree with me that the epistemology of physics is not the correct epistemology for mathematics?

Sigh... of course people bash economics, the subject they understand little about, but have a giant blind spot when thinking about how the scientific method is used in mathematics.

I actually think the scientific method is undervalued in mathematics. Euler had a number of intuitive techniques for summing divergent series like the Gompertz constant 1 - 1 + 2 - 6 + 24 - 120 + ... = 0.69... or Zeta values like 1 + 2 + 3 +4 + ... = -1/12 (frequently appearing in quantum physics). While not "rigorous", and rejected by most modern mathematicians, they nonetheless produce useful, verifiable results. For the alternating factorial series actually Euler listed 5 or 6 methods that produced consistent results.

I find this rather amusing:

"In a short period of less than a year, two distinguished physicists, A. Slavnov and F. Yndurain, gave seminars in Barcelona, about different subjects. It was remarkable that, in both presentations, at some point the speaker addressed the audience with these words: 'As everybody knows, 1 + 1 + 1 + · · · = −¹⁄₂'. Implying maybe: If you do not know this, it is no use to continue listening" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_%2B_1_%2B_1_%2B_1_%2B_%E2%80%A6

>Economics isn't a science and doesn't use the scientific method.

So you can explain why a rock rolls down a hill (caused by gravity), but your positivist dogma leaves you powerless to explain other natural phenomena, like why a person walks down a hill and enters the McDonalds below, or why the owner of the restaurant had the building constructed. I'm assuming you don't believe in magic souls or something, and that human brains are elements of the natural world. But it's like you are blinkered and pretend these phenomena don't exist.

BTW I think the repeated failure to engage me on any mathematics topics is a sign that either (a) you simply don't know much or care much about mathematics or (b) you know that deduction based on axioms doesn't fit in with your positivist dogma; it is a painful cognitive dissonance that you must strive to avoid confronting.

Look at Al G. Funguy running in circles of desperation. Like the reason someone went into a restaurant wasn't because they were HUNGRY. Like hunger can't be tested. Like a high traffic area can't be compared with a low traffic area to determine which is more profitable.

You're talking out your ass.

Perfection is irrelevant. Pi has been tested. Every circle in existence can be measured to find it. Even imperfect circles. The scientific method proved the validity of the concept of Pi. By measuring it repeatedly. Then coming up with formulae to utilise the concept, proving it further. Then devising a formula to calculate Pi without actually measuring a circle, and comparing the results to actual measurements.

And it isn't necessarily true in any possible universe. That's self refuting. By definition of any possible universe, there could be a universe where Pi is actually 2.51424 exactly.

All in all, you really don't know what you're talking about.

Provide me a grant and I will.

How are we unable to test large numbers?

Compute the value of exp(exp(exp(exp(100)))) and get back to us.
I'll even let you use scientific notation. It will take more particles than there are in the universe to write the answer.

I'm driving at the fact that some knowledge can be obtained without needing empirical testing. For example, the knowledge that exp(exp(exp(exp(100)))) + 1 > exp(exp(exp(exp(100))))

No one suggested additional examples beyond what I suggested, and people attacked my ideas mostly on the basis of misguided and demonstrably false positivist dogma, which I have seen before in "rational" people. As a result, I didn't learn much from this thread. I guess I have slightly improved my ability to gather evidence to support my argumentation. It's unfortunate that some who fear theism end up jumping in the positivist deep end.

The worst kind of positivist is one who totally discounts the role of the human mind in distinguishing truth from falsehood. Regarded as an element of natural science, the human mind is a lump of matter that is enjoined by the laws of physics and its structure to produce ideas, i.e. neural patterns. But a consistent positivist cannot say that the brain produces true or false ideas any more than the liver can secrete true or false bile. To fully embrace positivism is to embrace the destruction of all meaning and the destruction of science.

In regards to theism, it is possible that someone constructs a correct argument starting from a priori truths from which the existence of God is necessary, without needing empirical evidence supporting it. However, no one has done this to date. I believe Kant took a swing at it, and failed. It is also possible that someone might construct an ironclad proof of atheism. I think both are doubtful. As it is, I do not believe in God, just as I do not believe in blue-haired aliens living on Pluto. There's no proof and no evidence.

Ktulu, I believe I explained my position on evolution above.

Let me reassure you that I fully believe in theory of evolution, though I'm not very well versed in that subject.

Let me also share something with you. I find it interesting that the concept of "fittest" is defined by teleonomy, "the quality of apparent purposefulness and of goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms that derive from their evolutionary history, adaptation for reproductive success, or generally, due to the operation of a program" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleonomy

(How do you falsify "purposefulness"?)

This is interesting because the idea of "purposefulness" or "goal-directedness" features prominently in economics, which you some of you guys proceeded to bash above. At heart, the science of human action is teleological rather than causal. While a rock rolls down a hill - caused by gravity - a person walks down a hill to get a pail of water.

I wonder if there are any scholarly articles that deal with the teleology present in economics and in biology.

Poker odds are true knowledge deduced from mathematics and they are empirically verifiable. I'm not sure what's bothering you here. Is it just the fact that this is a mere application of science (i.e. that of mathematics)?

Is it statistics that bothers you? I would say anything that proves to predict reality correctly with 50.1% accuracy, but is wrong 49.9% of the time, has some predictive power and it might be an acceptable kind of science. It would be revolutionary if parapsychology produced a controlled experiment where someone has clarivoyant powers 50.1% of the time in "seeing" the results of remote coin tosses.

In any case, the praxeology (science of human action) of Austrian Economics is unlike what you are describing. It is axiomatic and deductive, similar to mathematics:

"Praxeology rests on the fundamental axiom that individual human beings act, that is, on the primordial fact that individuals engage in conscious actions toward chosen goals. This concept of action contrasts to purely reflexive, or knee-jerk, behavior, which is not directed toward goals. The praxeological method spins out by verbal deduction the logical implications of that primordial fact. In short, praxeological economics is the structure of logical implications of the fact that individuals act. This structure is built on the fundamental axiom of action, and has a few subsidiary axioms, such as that individuals vary and that human beings regard leisure as a valuable good. Any skeptic about deducing from such a simple base an entire system of economics, I refer to Mises's Human Action. " - http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard38.html

Al G. Funguy is trying to show that scientism is foolish.

If I remember correctly, he's a polytheist.  This is the guy who said he thinks he's living in a computer simulation.   

Dang. I guess you found me out. I ostensibly came here for an intelligent discussion on epistemology, but secretly I was trying to spread the word of the invisible Sky Daddy and his combustible shrubberies.

And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling kids.

Congratulations. You win.

Actually a peanut is a legume. I'm not sure what a "wallnut" is.

Questioning science or scientists is wrong. Peer review is the greatest sin.

I discussed it, but do not believe in it. And I'm not sure that's theism anyway. No one in the Matrix worships the pasty-faced Architect.

Your logical argumentation sounds convincing. Maybe you should be the Oxford philosopher instead of Nick Bostrom.

BTW, I love how you hide little spelling errors as a challenge to entertain your readers. It's "Kool-Aid", not "Cool Aid".

Why would you want to question science? Now you are the one sounding like a theist!

No, but the Loch Ness Monster might be.

With all due respect, I don't think rabidly accusing all and sundry of theism is a good strategy for helping atheism. You remind me of the Witchsmeller Pursuivant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchsmeller_Pursuivant

You came in here with an OP which is as flaky as any theist tripe posted here. And your best argument is to pick on my spelling?

Then you should have a problem with Furry too, she spells "God" "G-d".

Not that it matters that invisible friends don't exist. As long as we buy into your X-Box Matrix claptrap blindly like any other theist expects we should all piss ice cream and shit peaches.

Sorry. Crap is crap. Now if you want to convince me that you sell Porta Potties, that I might have an easier time buying,

duplicate

>Again, since you apparently missed it, how are we incapable of testing large numbers?

Well, you are incapable. That's why you ignored my request to compute exp(exp(exp(exp(100)))). Did you even the read the article on ultrafinitism that I linked to?

>Do you like going into debates and failing to accomplish anything?

I like debating with participants who contribute to the discussion - not those who strive to decrease the signal-to-noise ratio.