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Today's Atheist Meme of the Day:
"Lots of smart people believe in God" is not a good argument for why God exists. Plenty of smart people, throughout history and today, have believed things that were mistaken. Smart people are not immune to error... especially when it comes to beliefs they're deeply attached to. Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get across.
The point is not who said it. The point is, does the statement have validity and can it stand on its own no matter who says it? That's the real benefit of the scientific method. We don't believe in evolution because Darwin said so. We accept evolution because, no matter who says it, it holds true and no matter who denies it, the truth stands. Darwin just happened to be the guy to get the paper written on it first (and just barely, at that - some other guy came along with a similar idea and tried to report on it before Darwin felt ready to publish his own ideas).
The Argument from Authority is a logical fallacy. It is convenient to take someone's word for something when that person has given evidence that he usually knows what he's talking about. We can't actually fully analyze and study and understand everything we hear. Sometimes we do have to take "on faith" that what someone says is true.
But the difference between this and the logical fallacy is that we are not accepting that the statement is true just because someone said so. The statement still has to hold its own. And if the consensus among people who dedicate their lives to studying the subject disagree with the Authority Figure, then the validity of the Authority Figure must be questioned.
With science, any claim *could* be researched by anybody if they wanted to put in the time and effort to research it and attempt to replicate the study. So maybe I, as an individual, do not have that ability right this moment because I don't have the background or the money for school to get the background. But because the statement is researchable, others can research it too. And if no one else comes up with the same conclusion, then the statement does not stand on its own.
I don't have "faith" that it's true because someone famous said so. I believe it's true because I can follow the evidence and so can anyone else, and the evidence consistently points in this direction no matter who is looking at it, provided one is using the scientific method to reduce human error and bias.
It's not true because He said so. It's true because it's true, and I just happened to hear about it because He said so.
"Lots of smart people believe in God" is not a good argument for why God exists. Plenty of smart people, throughout history and today, have believed things that were mistaken. Smart people are not immune to error... especially when it comes to beliefs they're deeply attached to. Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get across.
The point is not who said it. The point is, does the statement have validity and can it stand on its own no matter who says it? That's the real benefit of the scientific method. We don't believe in evolution because Darwin said so. We accept evolution because, no matter who says it, it holds true and no matter who denies it, the truth stands. Darwin just happened to be the guy to get the paper written on it first (and just barely, at that - some other guy came along with a similar idea and tried to report on it before Darwin felt ready to publish his own ideas).
The Argument from Authority is a logical fallacy. It is convenient to take someone's word for something when that person has given evidence that he usually knows what he's talking about. We can't actually fully analyze and study and understand everything we hear. Sometimes we do have to take "on faith" that what someone says is true.
But the difference between this and the logical fallacy is that we are not accepting that the statement is true just because someone said so. The statement still has to hold its own. And if the consensus among people who dedicate their lives to studying the subject disagree with the Authority Figure, then the validity of the Authority Figure must be questioned.
With science, any claim *could* be researched by anybody if they wanted to put in the time and effort to research it and attempt to replicate the study. So maybe I, as an individual, do not have that ability right this moment because I don't have the background or the money for school to get the background. But because the statement is researchable, others can research it too. And if no one else comes up with the same conclusion, then the statement does not stand on its own.
I don't have "faith" that it's true because someone famous said so. I believe it's true because I can follow the evidence and so can anyone else, and the evidence consistently points in this direction no matter who is looking at it, provided one is using the scientific method to reduce human error and bias.
It's not true because He said so. It's true because it's true, and I just happened to hear about it because He said so.
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no subject
Date: 10/17/09 03:04 am (UTC)From:Alfred Wallace. Wallace actually encouraged Darwin to publish his findings, once Darwin contacted him. Darwin had done a lot more work, over a longer period of time, than Wallace.
Still, had the Beagle been lost in a storm or something, we'd probably be talking about "Wallacian evolution" instead of "Darwinian evolution" :-)