No… we establish that no medical cause exists, and then, we call upon God to exorcise the demon. Big difference.
Their assertion, not mine. Or yours, I hope.
No. All we can say is that the phenomena cannot be explained by medical science.
Again, nope: exorcists don’t expel demons; God does.
Agreed. See my argument above for the reasons that this is insufficient for establishing the null hypothesis.
I already have. The double-blind experiments which “examine the efficacy of new medications” have a basis for their conclusions – the experimenters themselves can “remove the blindfold” and thus, draw inferences. That cannot be done in this case.
Well, that’s your opinion, and you’re welcome to it. But, think of the downside: with demons positively ID’ed, so too would God be positively proven. That wouldn’t help their cause at all. So, by your very logic, your conclusion is false.
It really isn’t, and it’s disappointing that you make that claim. Surely, you realize that UFOs, if they exist, are physical objects. That makes an equivocation of them with spiritual beings an apples-and-oranges argument at best (and a red herring at worst). The two are not the same case.
Ya think so, eh? You’ve just asserted the ‘argument from ignorance’ logical fallacy.
Man, it pains me when folks respond without critically reading the post they’re responding to. Look – throwing a die is a trial with two equally probable outcomes. So, if you do it thousands of times and never get one particular outcome, you might assert “very implausible.” However, that’s not the case here. You cannot assert – with any plausibility! – that the ‘experiment’ you’ve briefly sketched has an outcome with any particular probability of occurring. Therefore, you cannot make presumptions about the implausibility of the results you obtain. If you run “thousands” of trials, but the probability of success is 10-6 or 10-26 or 10-googleplex, then you haven’t demonstrated ‘implausibility’, but rather, just a poor grasp of statistics. And, since you can’t establish a probability of success, you therefore cannot draw any conclusions from your experiment. QED.
No, you cannot, since you can’t make any assertions about the probability of success.
Prove to me that your experiment has a 50% chance of succeeding, and you’ll be on your way to proving your point. However, you cannot, and therefore, what is “irrational to maintain” is the pseudo-conclusion that they do not exist.
You’re going to have to explain what you mean here; too many possibilities exist, and I’m not going to attempt to refute them all.
And you can actually prove that the ‘call’ was made. Congratulations; you’ve proven that people pray.
Have you ever read up on exorcisms? Then you know that, typically, it’s not a “one-shot” deal; it takes multiple sessions of praying.
Wow. Apples-and-oranges much? ‘Playing with a Ouija board’ and ‘practicing the dark arts’ are hardly the same thing.
No, I don’t. If the experiment is meant to establish the existence of spiritual beings, then the null hypothesis is “no spiritual beings exist.” Doesn’t matter whether it’s your test or my test, or whether you believe they don’t or I believe they do. The null hypothesis is the null hypothesis. Sheldon would be very disappointed in you.
Actually, it does matter. On one hand, you’ve got physical objects which can be directly detected by empirical means, and on the other hand, you’ve got non-physical objects, which cannot. Even in the case of sub-atomic particles – which are difficult to detect – you’re still talking about physical objects. Even Russell posited something physical when he proposed his orbiting teapot – and, even that argument was only as plausible as the telescopes of the day. Eventually, his teapot must be found (or found to not exist); not so with non-physical objects.
sigh. The line is “don’t call me Shirley”. sigh. Kids…(Oh, and don’t call me Surely.
They’re not on “equal footing” – they’re just equally not disproven.
Nah. Evidence is used to provide proof. Lighten up, Francis…
Demons would count it as “downside” that God’s existence had been proven incontrovertibly.
Wow. Serious problem, there…
Umm… by consulting doctors, psychiatrists, and other medical professionals? What’s so difficult about that?
By eliminating any other normal medical explanation.
Ding ding ding! We have a winner! Give the man a kewpie doll!!!
No… the hypothesis is “non-physical spiritual beings exist”. The null hypothesis would be “non-physical spiritual beings do not exist.” Your goal, here, is to experiment such that the latter claim be shown to be true. My claim is that, no matter how many trials you run, you will not have proven the null hypothesis to be true.
Oh yeah? How about the proposition “spontaneous generation does not exist”. Is that one provable or disprovable in a scientific experiment? I mean… it’s a negative hypothesis. Is it testable… or should we call Redi back and let him know that his meat and maggots experiment was impossible to substantiate the claim against spontaneous generation?
And you are?
Ahh… but your experiment wouldn’t have established the null hypothesis, now would it?
)… non-existent. I know. Shame you pick out that one example, in the whole conversation, and let the real topic of conversation lapse. Run out of rebuttals, eh?
Ahh, but in the context of the discussion – null hypotheses – it wasn’t a fundamental mistake. Keep up, man…
And you still seem to be having reading issues. I never claimed that the null hypothesis was “there is no spiritual causation”, but rather “there are no spiritual beings.” RIF, Shelley…
And which, I continue to maintain, is completely unable to be asserted.
You’re really talented at the spin game. However, you’re not demonstrating error, just claiming it. Gratis asseritur gratis negatur…
Argument from ignorance. You just keep digging yourself deeper. For every instance where you claim that n trials is sufficient to demonstrate “likelihood of null hypothesis”, I’ll remind you that you have no basis for asserting a probability that any one trial succeeds (or fails). Without that basis, you have nothing upon which to base your claim (except, perhaps, your desire that it is true).
Au contraire! I’ve learned much in this conversation! (Most of it is your propensity for claiming others are wrong without proving your case; some of it is having learned that you’re just not getting why your claims about repeated trials don’t get you anywhere near what you want to assert.) Yeah, I learned much here.
Science is essentially a study of physical reality, which is what the scientific method was developed for. It is not a basis on which to negate or substantiate other possible realities.
No. You misunderstand the definition of a miracle. Very literally, it means “we have no natural explanation for what happened.” That doesn’t negate the miracle – it actually establishes it! Yes, it was a good job, thank you – it’s precisely what we mean by miracle: “no way to explain it.”
I do… but you haven’t proven your point. On one hand, you recognize that there’s nothing to disprove it, but somehow, you think that having nothing to prove it empirically makes it “questionable”. No… it makes it what we’re claiming: empirically unprovable. It’s only questionable if you believe that it should be able to be demonstrated empirically. My claim is that it isn’t reasonable to expect that. Therefore, your claim dissolves into argument from ignorance: “gee, Gorgias, since there’s no evidence, therefore you can’t make the claim.”
No. I get that this is your perspective… but no. We only “need real, physical evidence” if it’s reasonable to assert that it’s practicably possible to obtain real physical evidence. If it’s not, then this is a request that’s being made in bad faith.
Thank you for agreeing with me. Now, read carefully: if you cannot assign a probability for an experiment succeeding, how can you possibly conclude that the experiment failed?
Provably wrong. You hold a die with six sides. You want to establish an expectation for a series of trials. What probability do you assign – prior to the trials – for each trial? Are you able to do so, as part of your hypothesis? Of course! “If this is a balanced die, then there’s a 1/6 chance of any side coming up.” Your test, then, establishes that your hypothesis is correct or not. But hey… nice try.
No, I’m suggesting that – just as good scientists suggest – when you don’t know all the variables, you cannot test and reach valid conclusions. (You can certainly learn things; but unless and until you know what’s going on, you can’t reach conclusions.) Fortunately, only ignorant people suggest the opposite nonsense.
No. Not “not just now, but in principle.” By your definition, a miracle is impossible. (Nice job, BTW, trying to eliminate it by definition!
)
Dang, you’re good with your red herrings!
Fair enough, and I think believers would agree with you. So… I’m really sorry, but that’s one more arrow you have to remove from your quiver.
That’s all we can say about it. I don’t know why you didn’t understand this, and why it surprises you. A miracle is something that science cannot explain, and therefore, the only plausible explanation is supernatural. " Once you eliminate the impossible , whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
I wish you’d have understood it yourself; clearly, you don’t. (Or, you’re just enjoying the argument now.) . Now… it continues to permit us to say “we can’t find a natural cause for this phenomenon.” That’s all we’ve said from the beginning. (Maybe someone set up this straw man for you, and you really want to cling to it? I’m having a hard time understanding why, if you’re operating in good faith, you’re nevertheless just not getting it.)
Because you’re unwilling to let go of a losing argument…?
Because you want to assert a different definition for the word ‘miracle’ than what it’s definition actually is…?
)Intellectual capabilities? Really. Well I’ve made up my mind and it seems that you have rejected any definition of a word or understanding that a Christian has on the matter for the sake of your own biased opinion. How’s that for dishonesty. Why would a demon allow you to scientifically discover its existence if it’s goal is to deceive?
You cannot scientifically declare a miracle; at best a scientist can only say that according to our understanding and definition of what a physical/natural cause is there are no known physical causes. Otherwise you might as well arbitrarily define any possible act of reality as physical and that gets us nowhere. At that point science no-longer has a say in the matter. It’s philosophy and faith from thereon, and we can discuss whether or not it’s even reasonable to think there is a possible physical cause in principle. Science has no relevance on the matter.
We know what it means for something to be in principle a natural cause. It’s not an arbitrarily expanding definition. Otherwise the definition becomes circular and of absolutely no value in determining whether or not there are demons or miracles.