The limitations of science (The limitations of science)

by dhw, Thursday, February 18, 2010, 22:53 (5390 days ago) @ George Jelliss

George and I are locked in battle over evidence and subjectivity.-You say I dismiss evidence that you evaluate as reliable, and place it on an equal footing to evidence you evaluate as unreliable. I do not dismiss any evidence. However, I do put all these forms of evidence on an equal footing, because in my view none of them are reliable enough to prove that life did or did not come about by chance, that the brain cells are or are not the actual source of consciousness etc., that there is or is not a God. My evaluation of the evidence is subjective, just as your dismissal of some forms of evidence as "worthless" or "negligible" is subjective.-You say your methods "are not just a matter of emotive reaction but of rational balancing of the probabilities", and your opinions "are the result of careful thought, of weighing the evidence, of going to a lot of trouble trying to be as objective and unbiased as possible." I accept that without question. I would attribute precisely the same rational balancing, careful thought etc. to David Turell and his opinions, and I would be most offended if anyone suggested that I myself had not thought carefully, weighed the evidence, gone to a lot of trouble etc. But both you and David have reached opposite conclusions and I have reached none. Are you then claiming that only someone who reaches your conclusion is being "as objective and unbiased as possible"? I trust not. None of us can avoid our own subjectivity, but perhaps some of us are simply more aware of it than others!