[lbo-talk] Appeal to Ignorance

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Tue May 31 08:07:25 PDT 2005


Jim Devine jdevine03 at gmail.com, Tue May 31 06:51:43 PDT 2005:
>>Jim Devine commits a divine logical fallacy here called "Appeal to
>>Ignorance: <http://www.fallacyfiles.org/ignorant.html>. The burden
>>of proof is on those who make an improbable claim, such as "God
>>exists," "gods exist," or "I have a herbal remedy that makes your
>>penis three inches longer and thicker." Those who fall for an
>>improbable claim, merely because there is no evidence yet that the
>>claim is untrue, are called "suckers." They are the ones who fuel
>>the economy of spam. :->
>
>Note that it's my working hypothesis that gods and/or goddesses
>don't exist (and that penis-enhancing herbal remedies don't exist).
>A working hypothesis is one that one puts into practice. So I don't
>tithe or send money to people on the Internet.
>
>What's an "improbably claim" anyway? a few years ago, it was an
>improbable claim that there were techtonic plates under the ground
>that caused earthquakes.

The word "hypothesis" misleadingly suggests that you are investigating it to prove or disprove it. I don't believe that's the case -- I think you are simply uninterested in gods, goddesses, and penis-enhancing herbal remedies.

Plate tectonics isn't a claim about the supernatural, so, however improbable a claim about it seemed in the early twentieth century, it could eventually be evaluated as methods of observation improved. But a claim about the supernatural isn't subject to such progress. A claim about God is an add-on that cannot be proved or disproved naturalistically, so it doesn't improve any explanation of natural phenomena. Those who make an improbable claim that it does ought to offer evidence of it.

The virtue of science is that it has made it unnecessary for us to have any hypothesis concerning God or gods or goddesses. Science doesn't seek to disprove the existence of God or gods or goddesses, though it can and (if called upon) does disprove specific miraculous acts attributed to God or gods or goddesses. God or gods or goddesses -- and hypotheses concerning their existence or lack thereof -- are merely irrelevant to science, so they are not included in it. It is science's lack of interest in God -- rather than any argument against God's existence any scientist makes -- that really outrages theists who are not content to reduce God to a matter of ethics. -- Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Monthly Review: <http://monthlyreview.org/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>



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