An analogy

[UnseenParticipant]

@simon

I don’t think so-called scientism is even a fallacy. It is neither a formal fallacy nor a verbal fallacy. Has someone invented or identified a third category of fallacies? Putting an “ism” at the end of a word doesn’t ipso facto create a fallacy or consumerism, optimism, and perfectionism would be fallacies. Many ism words simply denote attitudes.

Even to establish scientism as an flawed way of thinking, you’d need to produce cases where scientism was proven wrong using something other than science.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by  Unseen.

[_Robert_Participant]

Atheists use the Plato’s cave allegory, but many early xtians (3rd century) were Neoplatonists and sure did like the guy. His Republic nestled alongside biblical and gnostic texts in the Dead Sea scrolls. He was all about the soul and afterlife. Epicureanism was the challenger and that’s more my speed.

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[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

I don’t think so-called scientism is even a fallacy.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about it.

[DavisModerator]

Scientism isn’t a fallacy. This very page you liked says it is an “attitude”. When it comes to claims about the world, beyond the mundane or the personal, I put my trust in that which is verifiable and backed up by evidence. That isn’t even necessarily science. When I ask someone to prove that they have sent me a package that I have paid for, we are not conducting a scientific experiment or saying anything notable about the world. I simply want proof before I decide to consider my options on getting my money back if there is no evidence it has been sent. So it goes with the claim that my neighbour stole a package on my doorstep. I, law enforcement, neighbours and the justice system expect compelling evidence to back up the claim. We don’t use the scientific method for this. So it goes with certain kinds of critical thinking and philosophical analysis.

It is entirely reasonable to expect evidence for any non mundane or some personal claims/things. Not expecting evidence and just going along with what people insist is the case, especially due to feelings, superstition, longstanding tradition, social pressure is a recipe for a toxic culture, harm, suffering, oppression, ignorance, langishing etc. Scientism isn’t the word for what is described above. Scientism covers a narrow part of it.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Davis wrote:

Scientism isn’t a fallacy.

How is it not a fallacy, to say that what we know is all there is?

In this special case, any kind of documentary evidence is inadmissable to most people.  Therefore, evidence is almost impossible to come by.  That doesn’t logically mean there’s nothing there.  Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

[DavisModerator]

Simon perhaps you need to educate yourself on what a fallacy is. Fallacy does not = a dubious attitude. Not does it necessarily mean an approach that leads to incorrect statements. They refer to flawed reasoning.

If you simply don’t like what you think Scientism is…that’s another story. If you think it alia le to include unverifiable approaches to knowledge, so be it. We all have our reasons. I would argue it’s silly, but you cannot prove one approach to gaining knowledge is THE way. I can demonstrate how toxic non ratio al approaches can be but again, in a meaningless universe I can only try to compel others to take this approach

In terms of documentary evidence in regards to a crime, yeah, why wouldn’t documentary evidence not count. What should t be accepted for the most part is Hersey or what someone feels is true or random speculation.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by  Davis.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Davis wrote:

Scientism isn’t a fallacy.

How is it not a fallacy, to say that what we know is all there is? In this special case, any kind of documentary evidence is inadmissible to most people. Therefore, evidence is almost impossible to come by. That doesn’t logically mean there’s nothing there. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

It is a burden of proof fallacy to claim Scientism is a fallacy. What other objective approach would you take to determine the truth of a proposition?

 

[UnseenParticipant]

@simon

From Wikipedia: Scientism is the opinion that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality.

Let’s accept that “definition” for the sake of argument.

Prove it wrong that science and scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality and…no using science in doing so.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Simon,

How is it not a fallacy, to say that what we know is all there is?

That’s not how science is supposed to operate.

Yes, science holds that we should only accept what is based in evidence found by the senses and deduced by Reason, but it also holds that we should expand the frontiers of the evidence in front of us as well, much like Ellie Arroway in the motion picture Contact. (I finally got to see that, though it took 3 nights to get through it because the WiFi and/or Tubi the streaming service was stuttering. Fantastic motion picture with a great cast of actors!)

[jakelafortParticipant]

Simon says: in this special case, any kind of documentary evidence is inadmissable to most people. Therefore, evidence is almost impossible to come by.

That is simply untrue. The evidence is evaluated and rejected. Deniers or disbelievers are not putting hands to ears or eyes. They are not buying what the good place proponents are selling.

And btw lots and lots of hearsay gets admitted. There are a bunch of hearsay exceptions that have putative earmarks of reliability. Take for instance hearsay that comes in under the exception, excited utterances, it is thought that the surprise causes the speaker to utter words of honesty. Thus if a witness testifies that she heard the subject say, “holy fucking shit that is a big fish…it has to be a world record!” then it is probably gonna get in.

Identifying and understanding fallacies has value. But i think it sometimes is substituted for thinking more deeply. We ought to recognize fallacies without knowing them if we reason well. And some debaters seem lost in a game of identifying their opponents fallacies. I would assume there are instances similar to hearsay in which exceptions to fallacy rules may be okay.

Enco i thought the book was better than the movie. Never mind movies and get off your dead ass and walk or find an early grave!

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

It is a burden of proof fallacy to claim Scientism is a fallacy.

Scientism is a fallacy because it states that if we don’t know whether something exists, it definitely doesn’t.  That’s a fallacy.

[UnseenParticipant]

@simon

You can have personal knowledge, in a sense. For example, I’m thinking of something. I know what it is. You don’t. No science involved.

Science comes into play when it’s general knowledge we’re talking about, and to establish something as general knowledge you need proof. This is where science comes in. I’m betting you can’t name any general knowledge that isn’t subject to proof.

This is not to say that science has never been wrong. The list of things science was wrong about is long. From accepting that gods controlled the weather to thinking that the Earth was the center of the cosmos, to thinking infectious disease was caused by certain “humours” rather than germs, to thinking that the Milky Way was the entirety of the cosmos, to thinking that atoms are the most fundamental building blocks of physical reality.

Science has been wrong over and over and over again. However, when we have corrected our knowledge, it’s always been done using science and scientific methods (e.g., research, experimentation, and well-reasoned arguments).

From the earliest civilizations up to today where there are scientific disputes that one side or the other must be wrong, but when the arguments are finally settled, they will be settled scientifically.

Anything else is voodoo.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

if we don’t know whether something exists

In other words, we can’t both not know, and know, something at the same time.   The two are opposite and mutually exclusive.  This is, what, the law of the excluded middle?  You can’t be (X) and (not X) at the same time.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

For example, I’m thinking of something. I know what it is. You don’t. No science involved.

You may also have experienced something I haven’t.  In this case, personal experience is the only admissable evidence for many people.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Scientism is a fallacy because it states that if we don’t know whether something exists, it definitely doesn’t. That’s a fallacy. Says Simon and Simon says.

No clue where you got that idea Simon. The cosmos is the mystery of all mysteries and it is filled with the unknown. Hell we even have scientists who suggest that dark energy and dark matter are big time, big money even though it is unknown and there is no proof. Many theories in cosmology depend on the existence of the unknown. You don’t have to go beyond the pale blue dot to find ongoing formerly unknowns. New species are discovered every year. New viruses, bacteria, extremophiles and on and on.

It is a different thing-therefore god kind of bs to posit a world that fulfills our hopes and squashes our fears and lacks reason in its support. There would be no science if the unknown definitely did not exist. Its frontiers would be bound by that notion and our knowledge and understanding ultimately exhaust the finite.

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