the role of \"the scientific method\" in agnostic thinking (Introduction)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Sunday, May 30, 2010, 12:31 (5100 days ago) @ dhw

I'd just like to respond to a couple of dhw's comments.-dhw writes: "Atheists, on the other hand, argue that science continues to make great strides in its understanding of how the material world works, and in due course it will be able to create life and come up with an adequate explanation of how the universe fine-tuned itself naturally, how the mechanisms of life assembled themselves naturally, and how consciousness is the product of purely chemical processes in the brain."-In fact I would not go as far as this. Progress will undoubtedly be made in answering these questions, but whether we will ever "create life" in the same way that it appeared initially is doubtful, since the extreme conditions may not be replicable, and there may be greater subtleties in the functioning of consciousness than dhw supposes, on behalf of atheists.-Secondly dhw writes: "As far as tangible evidence is concerned, this comes down to your own subjective assessment of what constitutes evidence. There are many people who regard their religious visions, psychic experiences, inner convictions as evidence enough."-This is an attitude that dhw often cites, and I've been puzzled how to argue against it, but is it really justifiable? There are lots of madmen who believe all sorts of strange things based on their subjective experience. The scientific method however insists on communicability of evidence, and if there is no way someone can transfer their subjective experiences to the mind of a sceptic what value can there be in such experiences? They may be the basis for personal decisions, but they cannot be imposed on others as "true" or "real" knowledge without independent proofs. -Claims that such independent proofs have been found in the case, for example, of secret knowledge being found by people who have out-of-body experiences, have never been scientifically justified. They are just anecdotes.

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GPJ