I think it's helpful to remind oneself that the scientific method is fairly new on a historical scale. The idea that knowledge always progresses is so...
Hearsay evidence can increase the reliability of the witness, and thereby increase the likelihood of the claim being true. But it's not about the subs...
You'd be fine if people came around and slapped you across the face everyday? No physical evidence on the hands of the people that lasts more than hou...
It's problematic to include antifa under the general label of SJW. Antifa is older and it's ideology is distinct from "social justice". The term " war...
It's very unlikely you can detect any damage on my fist from one punch, especially not hours or days later. There'd potentially be physical evidence t...
So you're fine with me walking up to you in the middle of the street, punching you in the face and walking away free? You only have your testimony, an...
That blows a hole the size of a truck into the legal system that anyone with sufficient planning can walk through. You're saying we should ignore evid...
So, according to you, we should ignore any kind of abuse that doesn't leave lasting marks? Even if it leaves lasting marks, the identity of the perpet...
But it's a practical necessity to form opinions and hypothesis based on testimony alone. Plenty of everyday situations reduce your opinion to the absu...
OK, but that only tells me that testimony is less convincing as evidence, not that I positively need evidence other than testimony for a conclusion. I...
What's the epistemological grounding of treating physical evidence as qualitatively different from testimony (ignoring for the moment that testimony i...
I'd say the maxim is the personal principle according to which the will is formed. It takes the form of a law, which is why it can be universalized as...
By definition, a hearsay witness has no information on the actual event in question. Hearing a claim does not make that claim more or less likely (unl...
There is no need to be condescending. To the people a 150 years ago, would it have made sense to postulate a Higgs Boson because it might be discovere...
There are theories for abiogenesis. There are also theories for the formation of the universe. None of the commonly considered ones include a god or g...
My formula was nonsense, as I just realized. If you want to combine evidence, the formula to use is Baye's Theorem. It's not a simple addition. Just c...
Yes but your mathematical operations don't fit. If you want to modify a probability P(X) of 1/2 with a piece of evidence that, say, only has a likelih...
Fair enough, I should have specified "on earth, currently". But the point is that the scientific method does provide a "closed system". It always has ...
I have no idea what you're doing here mathematically. Why are you adding probabilities together if you want to modify a prior using given evidence? Fu...
We can establish whether or not a god, or gods exist empirically through science. Empirically, whatever is not part of the current best explanation do...
Could you elaborate on why you think abstract, isolated "raw" sense data is the foundation (or part of it) of British empiricism? Of course the concep...
Isn't the Bayesian position that there is no qualitative distinction between assumptions and knowledge? It's all just probabilities with different val...
Yes, the difference is between P(X and Y) and P(X, given Y). When we're looking at the content of a claim, we have P(X and Y). When we are looking at ...
But you just said that we are dealing with merely the claim of witnesses, not actual witness testimony. Only actual witnesses add credibility. People ...
Oh, the scenario was supposed to be just a claim? Well in that case the answer is that a statement alleging more witnesses is less likely to be true, ...
And now you're the one just repeating what you already said without engaging with the substance of my reply. Perhaps I am fundamentally misunderstandi...
In addition to what others have said, it can be a show of dominance. Offend somebody and you express, to them and maybe others, that you do not need t...
Your argument is that we'd need a large set of data. I say we already have a large set of data for everyday occurrences. Our knowledge of current even...
I have two objections to this. First, evolution doesn't quite work that way. Not every behavior or feeling an evolved creature has is or has been help...
While @"fdrake" has already provided a fairly in-depth post on the value of multiple accounts, for most everyday examples it seems fairly self-evident...
Aren't you forgetting rather significant attributes like a significantly increased brain volume? There is a fairly large amount of readily available e...
But there are clearly things like art that have no discernable value for the survival of the species. You can simply choose to look at the surface goa...
According to a Bayesian view of evidence, the answer is yes. Though this of course does not alter the likelihood of winning the lottery in and of itse...
You can certainly put everything in that context. That is, essentially, what evolutionary psychology does. Doing so will provide you with some interes...
But this seems to speak in favor of the notion that considering ethnicity "interpretatively relevant" is a bad idea, regardless of any hypocrisy in ar...
If, within 5 seconds of opening that video, I hear the phrase "the great replacement of whites", you aren't really helping your point. That view is us...
Convergent evolution is also the big problem for this hypothesis though. Since convergent evolution can only be ruled out via molecular and genetic ev...
If that is your argument, then you should present it without referring to a start (except to exclude it). It's easy to demonstrate that an object with...
Emphasis mine. Your argument refers to a "start" that doesn't exist. But presentism doesn't assume the present started at some point. "Now" has no tem...
Both of these arguments have been repeatedly rejected in other threads. Do you have any new justifications for them? Here your argument assumes a star...
So far, there have been no signs of sufficient parliamentary support for a referendum. This may change if it looks like supporting a referendum is the...
That all sounds rather vague to me. It is perhaps natural for people to conceive of themselves as central to the universe. People are, of course, also...
The argument seems fairly obvious to me. But, if that is the case, then my second question becomes relevant: are there qualitative differences between...
Well Locke believed that the interests of individuals would naturally work together towards the common good. Economic activity is virtuous, leading to...
I think your topic has some implied premises that you could expand on. Your argument suggests that there is a human identity/nature ("who we are") tha...
The next interesting question is going to be whether May will be able to continue directing the process, or whether control will be taken by another f...
I see. But even if we accept that modal statements can be rephrased via possible world semantics to be non-modal, we still need modal knowledge. That ...
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