Is it always wrong to believe something upon insufficient evidence?

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Do you mean insufficient evidence according to you, or insufficient according to me, or insufficient according to what a cab driver tells you, or insufficient according to a majority of Red Sox fans, or … :confused:
 
inocente said:
Do you mean insufficient evidence according to you, or insufficient according to me, or insufficient according to what a cab driver tells you, or insufficient according to a majority of Red Sox fans, or … :confused:
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You put your finger exactly onto the proper spot. Everyone considers their own evidence “sufficient”. What is sufficient evidence? I would offer a definiton: “sufficient evidence is what would convince a skeptic”. I am skeptical about the claims of astrology (for example). A proponent of astrology would have a hard time to convince me, since I would look at his proposed evidence with suspicion, and would attempt to “rip it apart”. This is not “stubbornness” or the sign of a “closed mind” (how many times have I heard that!). On the contrary, it is the sign of willingness to accept real, convincing evidence. It is a sign of not being gullible. But, if the evidence is overwhelming, then one must give up the skepticism and accept the claim.

By the way, there is no generic answer. Every case must be examined on its own merit.
 
“Inquiry into the evidence of a doctrine is not to be made once for all, and then taken as finally settled. It is never lawful to stifle a doubt; for either it can be honestly answered by means of the inquiry already made, or else it proves that the inquiry was not complete. “But,” says one, “I am a busy man; I have no time for the long course of study which would be necessary to make me in any degree a competent judge of certain questions, or even able to understand the nature of the arguments.” Then he should have no time to believe.”

William Kingdon Clifford, The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays (New York: Prometheus, 1999). p. 78. The Ethics of Belief was originally published in 1877.
 
cho_pilo said:
William K. Clifford said:

It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

infidels.org/library/historical/w_k_clifford/ethics_of_belief.html

True or false?

Please discuss.
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I would say this is false. It depends on what constitutes sufficient evidence, which may vary from one individual to another, one culture to another, and one domain of knowledge to another. It also depends on how one defines belief in terms of certainty. In psychology, for example, belief is stronger than attitude, which is stronger than opinion. But belief is still not certainty, and is subject to change if additional evidence points to the contrary.
 
Perplexity said:
“Inquiry into the evidence of a doctrine is not to be made once for all, and then taken as finally settled. It is never lawful to stifle a doubt; for either it can be honestly answered by means of the inquiry already made, or else it proves that the inquiry was not complete. “But,” says one, “I am a busy man; I have no time for the long course of study which would be necessary to make me in any degree a competent judge of certain questions, or even able to understand the nature of the arguments.” Then he should have no time to believe.”

William Kingdon Clifford, The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays (New York: Prometheus, 1999). p. 78. The Ethics of Belief was originally published in 1877.
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Inquiry into the evidence of whether your wife loves you is not to be made once for all, and then taken as finally settled. It is never lawful to stifle a doubt; for either it can be honestly answered by means of the inquiry already made, or else it proves that the inquiry was not complete. “But,” says one, “I am a busy man; I have no time for the long course of study which would be necessary to make me in any degree a competent judge of whether my wife loves me, or even able to understand the nature of the arguments.” Then he should not have got married. 😃
 
cho_pilo said:
William K. Clifford said:

It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

infidels.org/library/historical/w_k_clifford/ethics_of_belief.html

True or false?

Please discuss.
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I do not think one can realy say, whether its true or false, because “evidence” and “insufficient” are not defined.

But i can say - based on grossly more than sufficient evidence, tons of it - that no human i ever knew or ever read any longer text of, ever even remotely followed that idea, except to some extent in scientific research.
And from this experience i conclude that practically no one ever follows that idea.

As a piece of evidence, consider second Bush. How often did i hear people implying thay think he is as bad as Hitler. Even some people in the US. Even back then i always asked myself, what is their evidence? I mean as bad as Hitler is quite something.

And then i realized, they have none. Highly intelligent people, who also turn into nice sceptics in case of some religions, people with education, who spent a lifetime in politics or writing about it, they fumbled completely, ignored all evidence and based their conclusions on nothing but the gut feeling that they do not like Bush or think he is stupid or evil.
And how has it turned out?
They were so wrong, as bad as Hitler, what a drastically wrong estimate. Quite normal for a US president, even beloved JFK managed to start more bloody wars and engage in more extensive illegal operations, if one considers he had less time.

So in some fields some humans manage to follow this idea (and in science its actually a good idea), but in regard to many other things, they largely ignore it. And were they practically always ignore it, is in politics or in respect to catholicism and fundamentalist evengelicals.
 
Perplexity said:
" Then he should have no time to believe." .
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This gets into the topic of something being “satisficing.” The idea expressed behind “satisficing” is that we have limited time and resources and as a result instead of coming up with the best solution to a problem we find solutions that seem good enough and go with it. The same could be said of belief.

Additionally behaving as though something is true is not the same as believing it is true. But in the absence of information that brings more confidence we may go with what we have or sometimes act contrary to a belief. Small example: I’ve followed directions for finding a place some times thinking/believing the instructions are flawed and won’t really get me to my destination.
 
inocente said:
Do you mean insufficient evidence according to you, or insufficient according to me, or insufficient according to what a cab driver tells you, or insufficient according to a majority of Red Sox fans, or … :confused:
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best response ever
 
If the available evidence is insufficient for a person to believe something is true the logical approach would be to remain sceptical and continue investigating.

Perhaps that person should accept the dogma of a higher authority, such as the Church. But is that true belief?

Believe built on a foundation of doubt, though supported by a superstructure of outside conviction, may topple when faced with the first storm.
 
Cormacnl said:
If the available evidence is insufficient for a person to believe something is true the logical approach would be to remain sceptical and continue investigating.
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But nobody does that in real life. Due to lack of time or motivation most people stop investigating issues, when the current result suits their gut feelings and when they have enough what they consider evidence to fool themselves into thinking they have sufficient evidence.

That is not always wrong, as it saves a lot of time and allows to have a life instead of continously analysing the evidence, but it can sometimes be quiet dishonest.
 
user "cho pilo":
William K. Clifford said:

It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
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Well it depends on what one means by insufficient evidence, but one can believe in the invalidity of a moral precept based on weaker probability/reasons; for if you can’t find any probable reason to favor it, then one can simply decide in favor of the less probable but still intrinsically strong belief that it is invalid.

If I don’t know if one can kill in self-defense and I can’t figure out a probable reason supporting either it’s truth or falsity, then I can just choose the (to the hypothetical subject of this scenario) less probable but still convincing reason and accept that I can kill in self-defense.
 
inocente said:
Do you mean insufficient evidence according to you, or insufficient according to me, or insufficient according to what a cab driver tells you, or insufficient according to a majority of Red Sox fans, or … :confused:
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That’s the problem with this notion of “believe only upon sufficient evidence” - it’s not clear what “sufficient evidence” is.

But what is clear is that “sufficient evidence” is a powerful concept, and Clifford’s credo sounds very compelling.
But it is also unrealistic.
 
styrgwillidar said:
Well, I’ll turn this on it’s head. Is it wrong to disbelieve or reject something based on insufficient evidence?

All you can state with certainty is that it’s unproven… not that it’s true or false.
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You can reject a proposition without knowing for certain that it’s false. I don’t see anything wrong with that. It seems that if you couldn’t do that, you’d be stuck believing every proposition you came across, regardless of how bad the evidence was.
 
Cormacnl said:
If the available evidence is insufficient for a person to believe something is true the logical approach would be to remain sceptical and continue investigating.

Perhaps that person should accept the dogma of a higher authority, such as the Church. But is that true belief?

Believe built on a foundation of doubt, though supported by a superstructure of outside conviction, may topple when faced with the first storm.
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I’m sorry but I had to giggle over the idea that the Church’s teachings, which have weathered 2000 years worth of storms from inside and out could possibly “topple” due to a “lack of evidence”.

Besides, the proposal is nonsensical. Christians don’t believe just in theology, doctrines and dogmas, we believe in a Person. It is the Person we trust, and thus what He says in the Church he founded. That is evidence enough–it certainly was for the earliest believers who turned the world upside down with their zeal.

But, putting that aside, there is so much evidence for the validity of the Church’s claims that the principle of “not sufficient evidence” doesn’t even apply.
 
Its called having Faith.

Like when I get in my beater everyday to go to work I have faith it will get me there. But seeing the condition its in there isn’t sufficient evidence that it will make it but I believe it will. Oh and of course it does - so far.
 
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