TWIM/RvA Dialogue...Evidence

TWIM LINK

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

I’ll be trying different approaches in these critiques, looking for the best way to maximize clarity. A lot of this will probably be determined by the nature of the article itself. For instance, I’d planned to do a section by section fisking with this one, but after a second reading I’ve decided the problems don’t so much lie in the body of the piece, much of whose reasoning I agree with, as in the nature of the criticism which the body is meant to justify. That said, this first one will probably be pretty short.

Many atheists — dare I say the majority — operate under the assumed premise that "there's no evidence for God (and/or the supernatural)." Many wave this around as some sort of trump card, but I opine that such is merely biased opinion masquerading as justification for denial. Like DD, I believe "there's no evidence for God" is one of the worst arguments floating around (a)theism, and I remain puzzled as to the strange, pseudo-intellectual pretense with which I see that argument waged. Today and tomorrow, I'd like to review two examples from science's history that I think illustrate the weakness of the "there's no evidence for God" argument. The larger analogy to (a)theism should be apparent.

Right off the bat, there’s some rhetorical posturing going on here. “Many wave this around like some sort of trump card”, front-loading a portrait of the opposition as unjustifiably cocky before a rebuttal to their position has even been outlined. “Biased opinion masquerading as justification for denial.”. More of the same. Their opinions have already been framed negatively in terms of being deceptive (masquerading), before the horse is even out of the chute. “Pseudo-intellectual pretense”, a somewhat overused depreciatory term, and speaking to supposed motivational factors which are entirely assumed on the part of the writer. All examples of poisoning the well.

... I believe "there's no evidence for God" is one of the worst arguments floating around (a)theism...

In actuality, what the person who utters those words really means is that they've not been persuaded by anything hitherto offered as evidence, which is an accurate assessment of the matter. From an atheist, this is also a tautology, because if it's known that the person who says "there's no evidence for God" is an atheist, that they've not yet been persuaded by any evidence is merely redundant. In rigorous discussion, I believe one would be justified in rejecting the "no evidence for God" argument solely on these grounds (subjectivity, tautology), but I think we have other sound reasons to reject it.

Note that "there's no evidence for X" is really just a generic argument where X always represents some proposition whose theoretical or ontological possibility is being denied.

The mistake being made here again and again is that the assertion ‘there’s no evidence for God’ is being addressed, and rejected, as if it were an actual argument. The subject making this assertion may very well have arguments which may or may not back up his claim, but we’re offered no specifics here with which to form an opinion one way or the other.

Let me reverse things to make what I’m saying clearer. A theist says to me “There is a God”. The appropriate response would be something like, “Really? What evidence do you have to back up your assertion? Offer it to me, that I might weigh it against my understanding of the world thus far. Maybe I’ve overlooked something.” The inappropriate response would be “What a silly, pseudo-intellectual pretense of an argument! And since I know you already believe in God, your ‘argument’ is also redundant, simply made to justify your conclusions.”

These are my cosmetic objections. Next, on to the substance of what I believe makes this a fatally flawed piece.

cl goes on to write about how peoples’ rejection of evidence doesn’t necessarily preclude the possible realities behind that rejected evidence. A valid point, if somewhat obvious. Basically he’s just saying we’re not always right about what we believe. Fair enough. We’re not always privy to information in the structuring of our beliefs, and thus our beliefs can be altered by the acquisition of new knowledge or understanding.

My real problem with this article is that I believe cl’s critique boils down to a semantical quibble, centering around the term ‘evidence’. The quibble is partly justified, in that we often use language, and indeed think, less than precisely. However, I also believe the quibble ultimately misrepresents the actual depth of meaning behind the assertion ‘there is no evidence for God’. When cl says-

In actuality, what the person who utters those words really means is that they've not been persuaded by anything hitherto offered as evidence, which is an accurate assessment of the matter.

he acts as if he’s correcting the context of the atheist’s assertion, when in fact this is the universal meaning behind the general use of the phrase ‘there is no evidence’ or conversely ‘there IS evidence’. In the course of any discussion, there’s a deep ocean of unspoken subtext that always needs to be considered in order to have a conversation in ‘good faith’*. When a theist tells me ‘there is a God’, I automatically take into consideration that this statement reflects a body of knowledge and concomitant beliefs on the part of the subject, and don’t merely reject or lampoon his assertion as substance-less or mindlessly arrogant on the grounds of the assertion itself. This is common sense.

When I say ‘there is no evidence for such-and-such a proposition’, what I’m ultimately saying is that I haven’t found anything which persuades me in a particular direction. Of course, all this gets complicated pretty quickly as we begin to assess the criteria we use in making our judgments, but that’s beyond the scope of this particular criticism. But consider the alternative to our admittedly short-hand meaning behind the word ‘evidence’. For the sake of both clarity and brevity, I’ll focus on one sort of so-called evidence- anecdotes.

Say my daughter comes home from school today, and tells me some jerk-wad was goofing around in class and dinged her trombone. Now, within my personal body of knowledge, her word alone is very good evidence that this actually happened. She can offer further confirmation by showing me the bone boo-boo, and the icing on the cake might come in the form of , say, an email from the offending party, apologizing for his carelessness (a check for the repairs would also be nice!).

Now, let’s say the next day she comes home and tells me that Godzilla showed up and ran amuck on her college campus. Again, I run this factoid through the old brain matter, and what do you suppose I come up with? Well, if I actually take the time to seriously consider the proposition, and don’t automatically reject it as a joke on the old man, I consider a list of many possibilities on which the actual existence of the actual Godzilla ranks pretty low. And after checking the news reports, and maybe even going so far as calling the school (though my skepticism would incline me towards dismissal of the whole story based solely on my daughter’s mischievous grin), I might turn to her and say, ‘My dear, there is absolutely no evidence that your story is true, or that Godzilla even exists.’

I guess what this all comes down to is the difference between evidence, and EVIDENCE. On one hand, any crazy story ever told by anyone about anything can be considered as evidence according to the nit-pickiest, all-inclusive sort of definition. On the other hand, most people are quite comfortable in rejecting questionable claims as ‘evidence’ with the universally understood, though ofttimes unstated caveats.

Ultimately, it seems that the pertinent part of cl’s message can be summed up in the sentence, ‘Reality isn’t always what we think it is, and opinions about what constitutes good evidence are sometimes overturned by that reality’. But then, everybody already knows this...don’t they?

*NOTE: In times past, cl has objected to my use of the terms good faith/bad faith, the implication being that I was using them as ad hominem invectives, speaking to presumed duplicity on his part. I will continue to use the expressions as I deem they are applicable, with the understanding that I’ve stretched the definition to include the failure to take into consideration generally understood subtext, and leave the reader to decipher whether or not conscious motivation comes into play in any given case.

TWIM REPLY:

jim has challenged me to what he offers as a "better way to debate." He's written a rebuttal to last week's post Asteroids, Cathode Rays & Requisite Knowledge, and invited me to write a response to his rebuttal, which he's agreed to post in its original entirety on his blog. 

I accepted the challenge, and my response follows.

All examples of poisoning the well. (jim)

jim's opening claim is that I'm "poisoning the well." The words of mine jim claimed poisoned the well were,

Many atheists-dare I say the majority-operate under the assumed premise that "there's no evidence for God (and/or the supernatural)." Many wave this around as some sort of trump card, but I opine that such is merely biased opinion masquerading as justification for denial. (cl)

I disagree that I've poisoned the well. One definition of "poisoning the well" can be found here:

[poisoning the well] involves trying to discredit what a person might later claim by presenting unfavorable information (be it true or false) about the person... This argument has the following form: "Unfavorable information (be it true or false) about person A is presented. Therefore any claims person A makes will be false."

Sharing my observation that the majority of atheists use "there is no evidence for God" as a trump card is just that: my observation. I do not use this observation to argue that claims made by the majority of atheists will be false, which means my statement does not cohere with either the definition of "poisoning the well" given above, or the form of the sample argument.

A second definition of "poisoning the well" can be found here:

..attempting to poison the well is a logical fallacy where adverse information about a target is pre-emptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing everything that the target person is about to say.
Note again that I did not present adverse information about a target, nor did I use my statement to discredit or ridicule everything a target is about to say. 

I have shown that two acceptable definitions of the fallacy do not permit jim's opening claim. Further, jim's sudden concern for keeping wells clean is interesting in its own light. As one of many examples I could share, anyone can easily see that he introduces my blog to his readers as a "SOPHISTRY SIMULATOR." I submit that such fulfills both definitions of "poisoning the well" given above, in that jim displays both "[attempt] to discredit what [I] might later claim by presenting unfavorable information," and "[intent] of discrediting or ridiculing everything [I am] about to say." I can only dismiss his charge of "poisoning the well" as unsubstantiated special pleading, at best. I submit that I have not only legitimately exonerated myself from jim's charges of poisoning the well, but further mounted a successful counter-claim against him. We can now move on to his next claim.

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jim's third and fourth paragraphs-his so-called "cosmetic objections"-were not worth responding to other than to say I found their clarity wanting, and their import to anything of substance unclear. The pre-agreed rules of jim's dialog preclude any emendations on his part, so I guess we'll have to leave his "cosmetic objections" right where they are. As an aside, I note that although jim refers to my piece in its entirety as "fatally flawed," he also describes certain aspects of my argument with terms like, "A valid point," or "Fair enough," or "partly justified," which seem to suggest the presence of something redeemable at worst. I submit that's at odds with the "fatally flawed" depiction.

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jim states what is perhaps his central objection here:

My real problem with this article is that I believe cl's critique boils down to a semantical quibble, centering around the term 'evidence'.

He explains that in normal language, "no evidence for God" and "not been persuaded by anything hitherto offered as evidence" are categorically interchangeable. jim then goes on to claim this interchangeability renders my argument a semantic quibble, presumably because when an atheist says, "there's no evidence for God," such actually "reflects a body of knowledge and concomitant beliefs" that is an unspoken given in any good faith dialog.  

He continues,

When a theist tells me 'there is a God', I automatically take into consideration that this statement reflects a body of knowledge and concomitant beliefs on the part of the subject, and don't merely reject or lampoon his assertion as substance-less or mindlessly arrogant on the grounds of the assertion itself. This is common sense.

jim seems to be under the assumption that I don't take similar things into consideration. He implies that I, "merely reject or lampoon [atheist] assertion as substance-less or mindlessly arrogant on the grounds of the assertion itself." I do no such thing. Nobody should do what jim accuses me of doing here. Nobody should reject a position on behalf of perceived lack of substance or arrogance in an argument. I don't say, "The atheist position is dismissible because atheists who use 'there's no evidence for God' as a trump card are arrogant and lack substance." Rather, I say that all atheists I've encountered who use the "no evidence for God" argument as a trump card either handwave evidence presented, resort to refutation by denigration, or actually concede (for example, SI-who's very fond of the "there's no evidence for God" argument-actually conceded that I'd presented "weak" evidence for a miracle at one point).

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jim's next strategy is to give two hypothetical examples presumably intended to illustrate the difference between a "reasonable" anecdote vs. a "not-so-reasonable" one. He presents the anecdote of a jerk-wad goofing around in class and dinging his daughter's trombone vs. the anecdote of his daughter seeing Godzilla at school, then concludes that,

..what this all comes down to is the difference between evidence, and EVIDENCE. On one hand, any crazy story ever told by anyone about anything can be considered as evidence according to the nit-pickiest, all-inclusive sort of definition. On the other hand, most people are quite comfortable in rejecting questionable claims as 'evidence' with the universally understood, though ofttimes unstated caveats.

Yet, the differences between acceptable anecdotes and non-acceptable ones were not mentioned at all in my original post, so jim's comments are dismissible as unrelated musings or non-sequiturs at best. As an aside, I agree that one is more justified in doubting the "Godzilla" anecdote than the "dinged trombone" anecdote. Wouldn't everybody?

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jim's closing paragraph reads,

Ultimately, it seems that the pertinent part of cl's message can be summed up in the sentence, 'Reality isn't always what we think it is, and opinions about what constitutes good evidence are sometimes overturned by that reality'. But then, everybody already knows this...don't they?

Yes, I would bet that most everybody does know this. Though pertinent, that was not "the pertinent part of my message," which could be summarized as,

1) Any atheists who respond with "there's no evidence for God" when asked to explain their lack of belief offer a tautology;

2) Strong atheists who respond with "there's no evidence for God" when asked to explain their lack of belief offer an argument from ignorance (as DD argues in his own post I linked to);

3) For ALL claims of type "there's no evidence for X," a certain percentage of those claims are undeniably false, so the theist has no compelling reason to suppose the skeptic's assertion is in the category of "there's no evidence for X" claims that are true, vs. the category of "there's no evidence for X" claims that are false;

4) "There's no evidence for X" is an ill-formed argument, and no justification of anything.