50
votes
Accepted
Why do I accept some inconsequential claims as "obviously true" without evidence? E.g. "Most people don't like to be hit on the head with a hammer."
First, because they are "inconsequential". Nothing hangs on it for you, there is no need to act on them and accept the consequences also, it is a "cheap", easily swayable "acceptance". But this still ...
- 42.5k
33
votes
Why do I accept some inconsequential claims as "obviously true" without evidence? E.g. "Most people don't like to be hit on the head with a hammer."
These are simple conclusions from inductive reasoning.
I don't like it when I hit my thumb with a hammer.
I don't like it when I hit my head on something.
Even though I haven't been hit on the head ...
- 1,767
29
votes
Is there such a thing as weak evidence?
You seem committed to a point of view where everything is either believed or disbelieved, with nothing in between, and either there is evidence for a proposition, in which case you believe it, or ...
- 11.1k
12
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Why do I accept some inconsequential claims as "obviously true" without evidence? E.g. "Most people don't like to be hit on the head with a hammer."
Maybe not so much a philosophical / logic-based argument, but in science there is a very helpful principle that most reasonable people (not only scientists) seem to have internalized:
Extraordinary ...
- 280
12
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Can a coincidence be evidence of a god?
Suppose for example that a person is standing on stage and says “God, if you exist, strike me with lightning right now” and a lightning strike occurs that barely misses him, is this evidence of God? ...
- 1,458
9
votes
Can a coincidence be evidence of a god?
No it doesn't imply a god exists. Think about it scientifically. How do physicists go about developing hypotheses and testing them? If you wanted to apply scientific reasoning, you would need to ...
- 13.1k
8
votes
Is there such a thing as weak evidence?
There is absolutely "weak" evidence. Or at least the notion that some evidence is more conclusive than others.
See these references to the Evidence Based Medicine notion of "hierarchy ...
- 807
7
votes
Accepted
Can the simplicity of a hypothesis be objectively measured?
Yes, see Solomonoff's theory of inductive inference. The idea is that you start with a formal language that lets you formally describe mutually exclusive hypotheses. And then we can measure simplicity ...
- 11.1k
7
votes
Can a coincidence be evidence of a god?
If I experience a coincidence or a coincidence happens in the world that seems to be at extremely low odds, does this imply that God exists?
No. Why would it? To make such an assumption would be a ...
- 4,107
7
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Accepted
Is there such a thing as weak evidence?
I fully agree with some of the prior answers including causative's excellent answer. But that seems to leave you unconvinced, so perhaps I can offer a different way of viewing this that will help.
Not ...
- 511
5
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Why do I accept some inconsequential claims as "obviously true" without evidence? E.g. "Most people don't like to be hit on the head with a hammer."
The obvious answer for this is that we don't require specific evidence because we use reason based on a normative understanding of the world. In other words:
"Most people don't like to be hit on the ...
- 18.5k
5
votes
Accepted
What is the name of the fallacy involving white and black swans?
This would be a straight-forward case of "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" or what is called argument from ignorance. As the article states:
This represents a type of false dichotomy ...
- 22.7k
5
votes
Can a coincidence be evidence of a god?
Can a coincidence be evidence of a god?
It depends on what you mean by evidence. According to evidential epistemology, anything that can be construed as evidence can be used to justify a conclusion. ...
- 22.7k
4
votes
How does the philosophy of science explore original research formulation?
Interpreted narrowly, your question seems related to the problem of (data) fishing, where someone investigates hypothesis after hypothesis on the data until getting statistical significance on one (...
- 2,490
4
votes
Why do I accept some inconsequential claims as "obviously true" without evidence? E.g. "Most people don't like to be hit on the head with a hammer."
The skeptics would argue that you accept these because you eventually have to. A common argument is the Münchhausen trilemma it is focused on the idea of "proving" statements via rational means, and ...
- 17.5k
4
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Artificial intelligence ChatGPT said that solipsism is true. Any evidence of solipsism?
Unequivocally, due to the way it currently operates, ChatGPT should not be trusted at the moment. It is about as equally likely to produce information as misinformation. In fact, it currently has no ...
- 2,405
4
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Does the idea of "some" or "better" evidence for something make sense?
The answer to your headline question is so trivially yes that I fear I might be overlooking some subtlety you have in your mind that has not quite managed to penetrate the barrier of stupidity that ...
- 13.1k
4
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Is the idea of weak and strong evidence incoherent?
You are painting yourself into a corner by starting with the position that statements are either true or false. Many statements are matters of opinion and many are uncertain for want of the ability to ...
- 13.1k
4
votes
Is there such a thing as weak evidence?
I thought that clip was pretty good.
There's a simplistic picture that science is about finding clear evidence for each positive assertion, but as Popper noted the actual task is discriminating ...
- 20.5k
4
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Is there such a thing as weak evidence?
There's certainly such a thing as weak evidence.
Suppose our friend Natalie has two 120-sided dice. (Yes, there are such things!) One of the dice is a fair die; the other die is a loaded die which can'...
- 813
4
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What criteria determines if a proposition is mathematical or empirical?
First, claims can be both rational and empirical, and mathematical claims are capable of being rational, empirical, or both in nature. So, it needn't be one or the other.
Second, in a sense, all ...
- 22.7k
3
votes
Epistemic value of multiple eyewitness accounts: single event vs. multiple events given a fixed number of eyewitnesses?
Epistemic value of multiple eyewitness accounts
I don’t know if this is an answer, but here is an example from real life: Babe Ruth’s called shot from the 1932 World Series. Look it up at Wikipedia &...
- 6,110
3
votes
Is a supernatural entity or existence constricted by the necessity of evidence?
You have made a mistake in your initial premise already. Existence is not bound by the availability of evidence, only proof of existence is.
You bigfoot example shows this: you stated that he is ...
- 139
3
votes
Why do I accept some inconsequential claims as "obviously true" without evidence? E.g. "Most people don't like to be hit on the head with a hammer."
Question: Why do I accept some inconsequential claims as "obviously true" without evidence?
Answer: Because you do not understand your own biases and thought processes and what conclusions they allow ...
- 129
3
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Accepted
Is a fallacy involved in perceiving the solution to a long-standing problem as simple and straightforward?
No, there is no "fallacy" in perceiving it this way, the sleight of hand is rather in the presentation. Two types of effects, which often work in concert, conspire to create this perception of "...
- 42.5k
3
votes
How "repeatable" does empirical evidence need to be?
From an epistemic approach, and from the perspective of empiricism, causality (for instance) is a type of knowledge acquired through custom and habit. So, you are asking how many times an event should ...
- 6,831
3
votes
Can a coincidence be evidence of a god?
Carl Jung's concept of Synchronicity, as he intended it, says that "the structure of reality includes a principle of acausal connection which manifests itself most conspicuously in the form of ...
- 5,198
3
votes
Can a coincidence be evidence of a god?
Of course, if there were an omnipotent and omniscient deity, it is plausible that it might intervene in human endeavors, creating the phenomena we tend to call miracles.
So that a) if there are so ...
- 688
3
votes
Can a coincidence be evidence of a god?
It is, I believe, a widespread misconception that one should not normally expect very low probability events to happen. Nothing in probability theory implies that. Anything can happen anytime, no ...
- 211
3
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Shouldn’t every claim require the same amount of evidence?
It's an adage/heuristic not a hard and fast rule of logic... So what do you expect?
Like the point of a heuristic is to give you reasonably good odds in a situation where you lack the time, ...
- 4,489
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