New answers tagged skepticism
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Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
I think we can say no, nothing about Bob's attitude "relegate him to quackery and pseudoscience" and we can use a historical example to demonstrate this.
Until Einstein proposed the theory ...
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Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
A lot of the answers seem to be missing the bigger picture.
The objective of science is to extend our understanding of the nature of reality. And to that end we try to weave our observations of ...
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Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
At its core, the scientific method boils down to:
Make an observation.
Come up with a theory that can explain the observation.
Perform experiments whose results can disprove the theory.
Eventually, ...
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Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
I strongly disagree with the first answer that says that the burden of proof rests on Bob.
My view is that "science" is just a name for the rules of the game called prover-skeptic: the ...
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Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
The go-to case to keep in mind for questions like this is Ignaz Semmelweis. You may have heard of him. Back in the day, he achieved great success at the clinic where he worked in eliminating the ...
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Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
Is the method reasonable?
You mentioned Alice using some method to arrive at her explanation. Whether this method is reasonable is distinct from whether any other explanation exists, and one can ...
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Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
We should always be skeptical of scientific hypotheses and results. The scientific method never proves that a hypothesis is absolutely true, it can only disprove things (when results are inconsistent ...
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Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
Not necessarily unscientific.
If I tell you that my anti-gravity device can save humans in 100mph concrete wall crash, and I have designed an experiment to try with a volunteer.. to test this ...
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Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
It is my opinion that this is the way science works a lot of the time. An observation is made of some phenomena. Lots of scientists work on this until eventually one comes up with a theory for the ...
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Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
It is common for managers to question without providing logical grounds the validity of hypothetically posed explanations of phenomena, especially when provisionally accepting the validity will create ...
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Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
Let's suppose the answer to your question was yes, it is unscientific to doubt theories without alternative explanations. Bob would have to say 'No need to perform your experiment, Alice; I can't ...
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Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
Not only is it not unscientific, it's not uncommon either. Scientists often offer up alternative explanations for things, but they didn't arrive at those conclusions instantly. Einstein's general ...
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Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
Definitely not. To say that it is unscientific is to fall into what is sometimes called the Sherlock Holmes fallacy. Alice seems to be saying that her explanation must be right because she has ruled ...
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Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
I would say that Bob is not "flouting" the scientific method, but he's not yet doing very good science. Alice is doing better science than him so far.
I would say that Bob pointing out "...
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Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
she proposes a hypothesis to explain the phenomenon, as well as an experiment to validate (or otherwise) her hypothesis... Bob still believes that it is reasonable be open-minded, even though he ...
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Accepted
Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
Alice has made some anecdotal observations. Through a process of elimination, she proposes a hypothesis to explain the phenomenon, as well as an experiment to validate (or otherwise) her hypothesis.
...
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Is it "unscientific" to be sceptical without offering alternative explanations?
First, just a reminder that hypotheses stand to be disproved, not proved. Karl Popper explained this. The phrase in brackets, unbeknownst to him, causes a problem with your question. We cannot know ...
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Can we conclude from Wittgenstein that all philosophy shows just as well that all philosophy is nonsense?
"My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone
who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he
has used them—as steps—to climb beyond them. (He must, so ...
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Can we conclude from Wittgenstein that all philosophy shows just as well that all philosophy is nonsense?
The concept of nonsense being itself philosophical, then if we applied this critique to itself, the accusation would redound upon itself, and fail for all that. Now, you might object that the concept ...
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Can we conclude from Wittgenstein that all philosophy shows just as well that all philosophy is nonsense?
I admire Wittgenstein's brutal honesty in renouncing his former work. As a lifelong sceptic, I also admire his scepticism. It seems to me that at least some philosophy is nonsense or bullshit. I would ...
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To what extent is intersubjective agreement required for one to be justified in trusting one's own subjective experiences?
This is an extremely straightforward application of Bayes' theorem.
Suppose we give prior values to:
The probability P(H) that person A has an hallucination (using what we know about A, or what we ...
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To what extent is intersubjective agreement required for one to be justified in trusting one's own subjective experiences?
Strictly speaking, intersubjective agreement is in-and-of-itself a personal subjective experience, and is therefore not entirely trustworthy.
In short; intersubjective agreement isn't a foolproof way ...
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To what extent is intersubjective agreement required for one to be justified in trusting one's own subjective experiences?
Trust or distrust is a subjective experience. It arises both in the presence and in the absence of intersubjective agreement. Justification efforts sometimes arise alongside the trust or distrust in ...
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To what extent is intersubjective agreement required for one to be justified in trusting one's own subjective experiences?
There should always be some room for skepticism, even in the face of high intersubjective agreement.
For example, there are many common optical illusions, which most people mis-interpret (even if you ...
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To what extent is intersubjective agreement required for one to be justified in trusting one's own subjective experiences?
To what extent is intersubjective agreement required for one to be justified in trusting one's subjective experiences?
There's no convention by which one can answer this question across all societies....
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To what extent is intersubjective agreement required for one to be justified in trusting one's own subjective experiences?
I just watched a Star Trek episode in which someone says "I know this, trust me". The captain immediately swings into action, because he knows the person and trusts their judgement. In the ...
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Accepted
To what extent is intersubjective agreement required for one to be justified in trusting one's own subjective experiences?
Intersubjective agreement isn't required at all, strictly speaking. But it does help.
For one particular topic, if we grant that some reasonable portion of humans are rational, it suggests that those ...
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Is the hallucination hypothesis always the best explanation?
There is a very powerful symmetry breaker- reality is experienced in broadly the same way by billions of other people. If you have an everyday experience, the idea that it might be an hallucination is ...
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Is the hallucination hypothesis always the best explanation?
In an interconnected world , where consciousness of individuals are connected, it is possible to verify the subjective experience. Science has some understanding of the concept of interconnectedness. ...
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Is the hallucination hypothesis always the best explanation?
The difference is simple. Many people in this world share the same subjective experience. In the case of A, many people do not share that person’s subjective experience.
If everyone claims to share ...
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Accepted
Is the hallucination hypothesis always the best explanation?
When is a hallucination the best explanation?
We have a fairly good idea of when and how experiences are unreliable. Just off the top of my head:
When you experience something while in bed in the ...
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Is the hallucination hypothesis always the best explanation?
Not if there is verifiable evidence for another hypothesis
First we can have a debate of what measure we use for "best".
But assuming there is any such measure, then the answer is: no, a ...
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Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
Pragmatically, the burden of proof is on who is trying to convince other folks to think differently than they do. It depends only on who is the proselitist.
A (a)theist who is not trying to convince ...
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Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
No. The burden of proof lies with the proposer. Onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat. I define atheism as the lack of belief in God. It is not the proposition that God does not exist.
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Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
If the properties and definition of god include observable effects in the empirical universe, then the burden of proof should be on the person advancing the explanation that opposes the science and ...
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Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
When there's a prevailing belief, the burden of proof falls on those who claim otherwise. For instance, when a geocentric universe was the common belief (it just seemed obvious to most people, and ...
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Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
I strongly disagree with the accepted answer. Proving the non-existence of something is in most cases impossible. In science, most of the time we need to prove the existence.
That's what the Russel's ...
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Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
On a pure logical point of view, it is as impossible to provide a definitive proof that no god can exist as it is to provide one that one god exist. Any attempt will fail miserabily because of the ...
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Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
For me this is very simply answered: the question is invalid. To ask it at all is based on fallacious understanding of the issues involved.
I prefer the famous definition of "atheism" often ...
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Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
Practically in informal circumstances the burden of prove lies with whoever needs to convert the doubter. If you are an atheist trying to persuade a Catholic their belief is misguided, the burden of ...
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Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
Replace "atheist" with "A" and "theist" with "B." Run through the question and see if it makes sense to give the burden of proof to "A" or "B.&...
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Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
The answer is not going to be "the theist has the burden of proof" nor "the atheist has the burden of proof".
Before you can answer "Who has the burden of proof?", you ...
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Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
Because of the fact that the God concept has strong connotations for many people it's easy to get "trapped" into a polarized way of thinking.
Firstly let me start with a pitfall in the ...
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Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
There is no such thing as a burden of proof. Hence, the question is unfounded. And if there is, it would be like any other ought thought of in history.
The same way that there is no way to objectively ...
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Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
Unless one is a fideist, one is essentially bound to onus probandi. From WP:
[T]he burden of proof lies with the one who speaks, not the one who negates... is the obligation on a party in a dispute ...
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Accepted
Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
I think gnasher729 and NotThatGusy make a great first point - "God" is too fuzzy a concept. Any discussion of God first needs to establish what properties we are assuming God has.
However, ...
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Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
Supernatural claims always carry a severe burden of proof. Since the typical theistic claim involves supernatural causes or effects, it also carries a burden of proof.
In general, skeptics carry no ...
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Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
I'd say the burden of proof is on the theist. The theist asserts the existence of some god. The burden of proof lies with the one making the claim.
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Do atheists bear the burden of proof in showing why/how the reasons presented by theists are unconvincing?
The basic rule of a philosophical discussion is to support one's thesis by some arguments.
History of philosophy shows that neither the theist nor the atheist have succeeded in convincing the opponent ...
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Is constantly questioning yourself a virtue or a drawback?
Scepticism in general, is not disbelief but suspension of belief, i.e.
maintaining a neutral attitude that neither affirms nor denies the
claim.
The word comes from the word "σκέφτομαι" +&...
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