I just got out of bed a while ago and have spent some time at my morning
ablutions and done some talking book listening and am now sitting down
at the computer for the first time today. This is not the time of day
that I usually deal with email, but I went to bed with a discussion from
this list on my mind and I decided to elaborate on it while I still had
it on my mind. Mostafa accused me of not knowing about so-called
rational evidence. It was not that I didn't know about it. It was just
that I considered it irrelevant to the discussion, so I ignored it at
first. But let's look at what it is and why it was so irrelevant.
Rational evidence is a legal concept and a theological concept. What it
amounts to is that someone tells you something and that telling is
accepted as evidence. In a court of law if someone states that he knows
that an event happened because someone told him that it did that
testimony is most often thrown out as being hearsay. It is also an
example of so-called rational evidence. On the other hand, if the
witness says that an event happened because he saw it happen then that
testimony is usually accepted and added as evidence in the legal
proceeding. It is called rational evidence because the witness has
nothing to back it up, but the witness is presumed to be a rational
witness. If, however, some independent evidence is found that shows the
witness to be lying then that opens him up to charges of perjury and,
possibly, obstruction of justice. Of course, the rational evidence must
be credible to be accepted too. Now, let me say that I am willing to
accept so-called rational evidence under certain circumstances. For
example, suppose someone sends me an email in which he claims to be
wearing white socks. I am specifying email because that takes my
blindness out of it as possibly a failure to verify. No one can verify a
claim if all they have is an email making the claim. Well, I would be
inclined to believe that claim. Wearing white socks is a very, very,
common thing to do. I would not have any reason to think the person
making the claim had a motive to lie about it. If I did think of a
credible reason that he might be lying, though, I would become more
skeptical. But if I accept the claim I am still accepting a claim that
has nothing to back it up and so so-called rational evidence has about
as much to do with being rational as Ayn Rand's objectivism has to do
with being objective. I think that is a good analogy because in both
cases it works for specific claims, but as a general principle for
acquiring knowledge they are both worthless. Now, let's look at Carl
Sagan's admonition that fantastic claims require fantastic evidence.
That concept was also embodied in he Isaac Asimov quote I was using as
my signature line last month. I may accept the claim that a person is
wearing white socks on nothing but his word because that is not a
fantastic claim in the least, but if the same person claims that there
is an invisible man in the sky with magical powers who made me then that
claim is a lot harder for me to accept on the person's word. It is a
very fantastic claim and it requires evidence from the person making the
claim. And because it is a fantastic claim it requires really fantastic
evidence too. What kind of evidence does it require? Well, Mostafa was
dismissing the validity of empirical evidence, but it is a part of what
would be called scientific evidence. By the way, empiricism is a branch
of materialist philosophy that can be discussed separately. I mention it
now because I thought it likely that the word empirical might bring that
up, but it is not particularly relevant to what I am discussing right
now. Empirical evidence is pretty much the same thing as data. That is,
everyone can look at it and agree that it is real except for some wack
jobs who would deny the existence of a brick wall if they were slammed
against it, that is, religious types. Scientific evidence means that
scientific method has been applied to the empirical evidence. That is,
it is hypothesized that if certain things are done to the empirically
derived data that certain things will happen and then these things are
done to it - that is, an experiment - and the hypothesis is either
verified or refuted by the outcome. Somehow Mostafa thinks that
so-called rational evidence is more reliable than either empirical or
scientific evidence. That is, if someone tells him that Muhammad, peas
and carrots be upon him, rode through the sky on a flying horse he will
accept that over any scientific studies on aerodynamics or biology. He
also gets to pick and choose. He will accept utterly ridiculous claims
like that, but if I make a claim that is just as much an example of
so-called rational evidence he will reject it. It is also a bit ironic
that the person who believes in the flying horse would say that I am the
one who belongs in a mental hospital.
--
_________________________________________________________________
J.K. Rowling
“ I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for believing
in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist! ”
― J.K. Rowling