Re: Is evolutionary chance impossible?
Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 6:30 am
As I explained in regard to Plato, the epistemological separation is between knowledge and belief. Plato held that knowledge is intelligible while belief is based on appearances. All knowledge is true by definition, because the concept of false knowledge is a contradiction. However, belief can be either true or false. True belief sits between delusion and knowledge on the spectrum. This is where the concept of heuristics that Interbane mentioned comes in. I believe a hypothesis will be proved by experiment, but can change my belief when the evidence changes. I can have a belief about popular political attitudes, but an election can either prove me right or wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic There are many true statements which do not qualify as knowledge, simply because we are not certain if they are true or false. If we hold to such statements, we express a belief, not knowledge. If a past belief is proved wrong, we say they thought they knew but they were wrong, and they only believed it.DWill wrote:Robert I thought was at first categorizing as knowledge only that of which we are certain. Its certainty is what makes it knowledge. If it's not knowledge, it's delusion. What about things of which we can't be sure? if these are not knowledge, what are they? Robert seems to change the classification in his last post, but I could be wrong and invite him to correct me.
It gets back to the purpose of philosophy. Traditionally, philosophy aimed at a systematic understanding of reality. The rise of post modern relativism has cast this goal into disrepute among liberal academics and their acolytes. My view is that we need systematic foundations in logic as a basis for correct thought so we can agree what is objectively true and false. Otherwise we find ourselves in the awful mess illustrated by this thread of people not being certain if evolution is a more accurate explanation of life than creationism.There is a question of purpose to be asked. What is the importance of claiming certainness? That's not a challenge question, I really am asking in order to know. We've heard that to have confidence that what we believe is reliable, without having to specify certainness, is sufficient. Is it always?
This gets back to Karl Popper's theory of falsificationism, the idea that a scientific claim is one that could in principle be falsified by contrary evidence. This has morphed into the weird solipsist idea that all certainty is impossible. We cannot falsify the claim that the earth orbits the sun because it is true. Scientists refine this finding by measurement against data, and now have a very precise scientific theory that predicts the future positions of all the planets. It is not a complete theory, because it starts to get inaccurate after several thousand years, but it is quite good. Science is always striving for greater accuracy and predictive power.Another question is what do researchers try to do. Do they try to arrive at certainness, and is asserting that something is certain part of their mandate? Is that proper or improper action?
Following Popper, scientists have become models of humility and contriteness, not willing to assert they are certain that creationists will go to hell. Or to rephrase that, that creationists are definitely wrong.
Knowledge is a great motivator, just as faith can move mountains. But we need to be cautious before making claims of knowledge, just as we see that faith can be a dangerous thing. That is why I say that scientific method is core to knowledge. When abundant objective data corroborates our claim, we are justified in claim that it is knowledge. But even so, scientists are people, with psychological and political foibles. Kuhn explains the problem of confirmation bias quite well, with scientists resistant to ideas that challenge established theories. Generally this is because the established theory is right and the critic is wrong. But this creates a rigidity of worldview, with beliefs about what is important and what is unimportant. Paradigms are held in place by established views that criticism is unimportant. An error at the margin of a worldview can prove rather upsetting.Looking at the second aspect, which I'm going to say cannot be divorced from emotion, what are its benefits and drawbacks? I can think of motivating for action as in the first category, and tending toward confirmation bias as in the second.
In relativity, Einstein did not prove Newton wrong about most things, but mainly provided a refinement of Newton's findings. It remains the case that most Newtonian knowledge remains correct, especially the laws of motion as applied in practical engineering.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s ... f_validity