The "evidence for evidence"

[The Black Jester]

Apologies if this has been dealt with in prior threads, but I could not find one dedicated to this question:

A standard tactic used by theists, or conspiracy theorists, to bolster their faith in "other ways of knowing" is to attack the foundation of scientific inquiry by bringing into question science's exclusive reliance upon evidence and observation.  It is most often truculently posed as, "Where's the evidence for evidence?"  How do you, personally, counter this argument (if you do)?  A summary of the argument appears in a link provided by "freeservant" in one of his posts in the religion thread.  Here is the link:

http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=108&EventId=269

Here is an extract summarizing the argument by a well known apologist, Professor Keith Ward.  In speaking of the discovery of the scientific method, and reliance upon evidece, he says...:

...<snip>
CRITERIA OF TRUTH
That is an important discovery, but it does not answer the question, ‘And is that what reality is?’ For if that is what reality is, you have to believe that the observational sciences give us the only access to truth. You have to believe that the only good reason for believing something is that you have observational, experimental evidence for it. But once you put it like that, it is obvious that such a hypothesis is self-refuting. The belief that you should only believe things on the basis of observation and experiment is not itself based on observation and experiment, and therefore it should not be believed. This is as near to a wholly self-refuting statement as anyone could desire. You are saying, ‘Only accept as true what can be observationally established’. But no observations show that statement is true. (emphasis mine) So it seems that you should not accept it after all (though you might accept it as a recommendation, which you are free to reject if you can think of some other way of establishing truths).

I think what lies behind this recommendation is the thought that to accept only what the sciences can establish is the most reasonable or economical course, and it works, producing useful, fruitful knowledge. If so, we are accepting the more general principle that rationality and fruitfulness are basic tests for truth, and what we shall then look for is the most reasonable and fruitful account of the nature of reality. Part of a reasonable account is that it should cover all the different sorts of data there are in as coherent a way as possible. And part of a fruitful account is that it should be helpful in maintaining a morally admirable, socially helpful, and personally integrating way of life. Of course, any such account must be consistent with the best scientific findings. But can we be quite sure that only scientific procedures are rational and fruitful? Might there not be other data, not accessible by the methods of the natural sciences, with which our account of reality needs to be consistent as well?...<snip>

He then goes on to discuss things like "dreams" as examples of things to which we have no 3rd person access, and therefore of which we have no 3rd person, scientific evidence that is not somehow based on prior 1st person, subjective reports, which are supposed to be inadmissable as evidence where the scientific method is concerned.

The standard responses seem to be to point out the very basic fact that even the Faithful use evidence, in the sense of having "reasons" (however poor) for their faith, and that if they did not, if they were honest with themselves, they would not be believers.  More importantly, we all rely on evidence for the functioning of our legal system, and believers do this as much as non-believers.

Indeed, it seems a question of what you want. If you want your claims to match external reality, there must be some way of establishing a connection between your claim and reality, and the scientific method does this quite well.  In fact, where the scientific method has come into competition with "faith," the scientific method has won out every time.  And so I would add to the above rebuttal that every time an evidence-based explanation beats out a superstitious one, we have evidence for the evidentiary process being superior in terms of matching claims to reality, which is presumably what we all want.  Does this particular reply adequately respond to the challenge?

One can add to this the unreliability of 1st person, unverified accounts, and the contrasting reliability of the information produced by the scientific method.  

But are there areas of reality that the scientific method cannot penetrate? If so, is this in the least damaging to the picture of reality formed by the scientific method?  This is perhaps a more philosophical question than a scientific one, but I somehow feel the thread is more appropriate here.

How have you answered this challege, when it has been posed to you?

[Squid]

Sagan's Dragon...

[Cite134]

Sagan's Dragon...

I think this pretty much sums it up.

[Thumpalumpacus]

The answer: find a better methodology.  Until then, I'll go with evidence.  It has put men on the Moon, aspirin into clogged arteries, and food in almost seven billion bellies.

It seems to work.

[freeservant]

Sagan's Dragon...

Here is something I posted on my stumbleupon page:

From the page: "Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are vertically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder."

This example can at best bring agnosticism.

But what of the atheist.

A sharp intellect can see there is no Santa Claus. You can check out the North Pole for evidence of an elven toy manufacturing plant. Yet the atheist has no evidence for the absence of God. The invisible dragon in the Garage issue would like to show the theist and deist as keepers of wrong thinking or wishful thinking. But for the atheist who has no positive evidence for the absence of God, can not base their position on one they can empirically prove. So like the person with the dragon in their garage the atheist has no empirical evidence like the absence of toy manufacture on the north pole. If atheists wish to demand evidence then they also can present evidence of absence.
But...

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

So no atheist has empirical proof for their atheism that they can present.

This places them in the same position as any theist or deist yet the stubborn atheist can dogmatically insist this is not true.

The logic and claimed rationality of the atheist is defeated by their own empiricism for which they have no empirical proof to present.

So how are atheists any different?

http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/Jac ... /35034453/

I tend to think Sagan's dragon is a way to think in black and white about what constitutes evidence and then scrub out a scientific box where no gods will be able to be found or any evidentiary toe hold can be allowed to the theist.  The firewall of the null hypothesis.

This link claims to have evidence: http://www.leestrobel.com/videoserver/v ... robelT1201

Here is another:  http://www.christian-thinktank.com/eyesopen.html

It is a safe barrier for the evidentalist if they can be as narrow and as black and white in there thinking as they can get.

...Yet there is always more to explore: http://logbase2.blogspot.com/2009/01/ab ... dence.html

[Squid]

That's all fine and good for strong atheism (and in regarding that stance I would agree with you) but for weak atheism it wouldn't necessarily apply.  Not all atheists are proposing a gnostic viewpoint.  For agnostic atheists such as myself we have a tentative conclusion which can be reconsidered as more evidence is brought to light.

Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence but neither is it a valid platform of evidence to support the existence of an entity - possibility doesn't necessitate evidentiality.  This is why I think you miss the point of Sagan's story in that he is asking what is the difference between an entity which cannot interact in any way shape or form with us and our world/universe/reality et cetera and no entity at all?

I also think you have possibly misunderstood the null hypothesis.  A very simple example - we have a drug and want to see if it works to help with headaches.  The alternative hypothesis is that it will have an effect, the null hypothesis is that there will be no change, no effect or that which cannot be separated from chance.  However, just as with the tentative conclusion which forms the basis for agnostic atheism, the null is not the end all, beat all conclusion and just as anything in methodological inquiry it cannot ever truly be "proven" with complete certainty:

The notion that you cannot prove the null hypothesis is true in the same sense that it is also true that you cannot prove any exact (or point) hypothesis.  However, there is no reason for believing that an estimate of some parameter that is near a zero point is less valid than an estimate that is significantly different from zero (Greenwald, p. 420)

The second sentence is in line with what Sagan was trying to point out.

References:

Greenwald, A. (1993). Consequences of prejudice against the null hypothesis.  In G. Keren & C. Lewis (Eds.). A Handbook for Data Analysis in the Behavioral Sciences.  Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

[Cite134]

Also, there are equal possibities on the explanation of existence, or the universe besides the traditional concept of "God" that theists probably will not believe (which I find to be interesting). Why would one person not believe that an alien created everything we see with a special gun? Or perhaps that existence is caused by some unknown anamoly due to the vibrations of a pink unicorn's horn? Etc. etc. Now I am going to assume that many people will either disbelieve these claims or reject them altogether. But why? Surely you cannot disprove these claims.

It's exactly the same idea for 'atheism'. We cannot disprove your claim of god, but we surely have no good reason to believe it. On another note, in relation to evidence, I will stick by the idea of Sagan's Dragon.