Certainty is Unattainable Through Science and Reason? So What?
Eric commented
1) This gets him no where as I've explained in my original post. Based on this admission he simply cannot all-of-a-sudden bring into the equation the whole host of assumptions he needs to do in order to believe in the Christian faith. I maintain that a believer cannot drive a truckload of assumptions through a mere possibility once it's admitted that certainty is unattainable in science and in reasoning. Simple assumptions, i.e. Ockham's razor, are better. For if Eric can do that based on his Christian assumptions when science and reason don't work at the level of certainties, then a voodoo witchdoctor or a Hindu, or a Muslim can do the same exact thing and bring into the equation all of their assumptions too. It seems as though the admission that science and reason don't work to produce certainties is used by believers like Eric with a type of carte blanch authority to write any amount in a blank check when it comes to one's own beliefs. But this blank check approach fails the outsider test for it allows too much that other faiths would reject. If it's the case that simply because we can't be apodictically certain of much of anything means we can write our own belief checks for as much as we want to, then anything, and I mean anything goes. Let's just believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Russell's Celestial Teapot at that point. They would have the same epistemological grounding.
2) When we reach a point where reason and science don't help us when trying to find the bottom of the rabbit hole, what we do at that point is we use our background beliefs to solve the question. Even though science and reason do not help us down there, we can still place that question next to the other things we believe and then have a good reason for deciding what to believe about the question in hand. Since we cannot investigate every sub-discipline of a sub-discipline what we believe can at least cohere with what else we believe.
But of course, this is what gets us all into trouble, because as human beings we believe contradictory things which we think cohere with the rest of what we believe, but we don't realize that what we believe is contradictory with other things we believe! This too favors being skeptical of our beliefs, all of them, to varying degrees (Quine's web of beliefs).
An important point I made in my initial post is that, science, and I’ll add reason, are the best we’ve got. They are the best antidote to wishful thinking, the best chance we have for getting it right. If we don’t lean on science and reason then anything goes at all, anything. And since certainty is an impossible goal then defending every proposition is unnecessary even if it’s practically impossible.
I’ve subjected a few of the most often proffered examples of beliefs for which it's claimed we have no scientific evidence for them right here, and even when it comes to these strange possibilities I have good reason to reject these examples. So what if we cannot prove otherwise? So what if there is always a possibility that we're wrong? We’re looking at what is probable, not possible. That’s all we can do!
Cheers.
...take any proposition you believe to be supported by 'science and reason,' and proceed to provide the premises that support it. Take any one of these premises and support it. Continue. It won't take long at all before you reach a premise that you can't justify scientifically, and a short time after that you'll find a premise you can't justify with 'reason.' What then?I agree with Eric on this. But there are two things I'd like to say about it:
1) This gets him no where as I've explained in my original post. Based on this admission he simply cannot all-of-a-sudden bring into the equation the whole host of assumptions he needs to do in order to believe in the Christian faith. I maintain that a believer cannot drive a truckload of assumptions through a mere possibility once it's admitted that certainty is unattainable in science and in reasoning. Simple assumptions, i.e. Ockham's razor, are better. For if Eric can do that based on his Christian assumptions when science and reason don't work at the level of certainties, then a voodoo witchdoctor or a Hindu, or a Muslim can do the same exact thing and bring into the equation all of their assumptions too. It seems as though the admission that science and reason don't work to produce certainties is used by believers like Eric with a type of carte blanch authority to write any amount in a blank check when it comes to one's own beliefs. But this blank check approach fails the outsider test for it allows too much that other faiths would reject. If it's the case that simply because we can't be apodictically certain of much of anything means we can write our own belief checks for as much as we want to, then anything, and I mean anything goes. Let's just believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Russell's Celestial Teapot at that point. They would have the same epistemological grounding.
2) When we reach a point where reason and science don't help us when trying to find the bottom of the rabbit hole, what we do at that point is we use our background beliefs to solve the question. Even though science and reason do not help us down there, we can still place that question next to the other things we believe and then have a good reason for deciding what to believe about the question in hand. Since we cannot investigate every sub-discipline of a sub-discipline what we believe can at least cohere with what else we believe.
But of course, this is what gets us all into trouble, because as human beings we believe contradictory things which we think cohere with the rest of what we believe, but we don't realize that what we believe is contradictory with other things we believe! This too favors being skeptical of our beliefs, all of them, to varying degrees (Quine's web of beliefs).
An important point I made in my initial post is that, science, and I’ll add reason, are the best we’ve got. They are the best antidote to wishful thinking, the best chance we have for getting it right. If we don’t lean on science and reason then anything goes at all, anything. And since certainty is an impossible goal then defending every proposition is unnecessary even if it’s practically impossible.
I’ve subjected a few of the most often proffered examples of beliefs for which it's claimed we have no scientific evidence for them right here, and even when it comes to these strange possibilities I have good reason to reject these examples. So what if we cannot prove otherwise? So what if there is always a possibility that we're wrong? We’re looking at what is probable, not possible. That’s all we can do!
Cheers.