Here it is! The hundredth Good Reason post. Expressions of congratulations may be left in comments.
As a celebration, a little gift for you: a wonderful list of cognitive biases. Yep, all those funny little bugs in our mental system that make fictions seem real, and that keep religion and alternative medicine going.
I’m going to be poring over this list for quite some time today. Once I’ve got it memorised, I expect I shall be an insufferable tormentor to all my religious friends. “Sorry, pal, but that’s a mighty big case of observer-expectancy effect you’ve got going there.”
20 April 2006 at 6:50 am
feliz cumpleanos buena razon…..have fun! (that was a subtle reference to the first blog i ever read)
20 April 2006 at 1:21 pm
What do you think of the argument from ignorance bias/fallacy (particularly re: Irving Copi)?
I don’t think it will change your mind. However, are we both not making the same logical fallacy? That is, you believe there is no god because there is no evidence to prove his (okay, or her) existence, I believe there is a god because there is no evidence to prove this guy Jesus was not resurrected?
Congratulations.
20 April 2006 at 9:59 pm
Congratulations on your 100th blog! And thanks for the point to the biases. Lists like that entertain and humble me at the same time. I stopped memorising things after reading Daniel Dennett – he suggested that the ability to store data outside of our mind (through symbols/writing etc) is what allowed the human brain to develop beyond other animals because it freed up space for cognitive processing. It’s worked – I’ve now turned into the classic absent-minded professor. Can’t remember where I put my keys but I can argue my way out of a paper bag.
21 April 2006 at 6:50 am
Thanks, amy.
However, are we both not making the same logical fallacy? That is, you believe there is no god because there is no evidence to prove his (okay, or her) existence, I believe there is a god because there is no evidence to prove this guy Jesus was not resurrected?
It’s true that there are two sides to the argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy. Copi is saying that in the absence of evidence, it’s premature to consider either point of view proven. However, it’s perfectly logical to consider the unsubstantiated proposition unproven and perhaps even very unlikely.
Let’s use an example that’s obviously wrong: blue fairies.
You might say they don’t exist because there’s no evidence for them. I say they exist because you have no evidence that they don’t exist.
So do we, by default, believe in the fairies?
No; if I’m making a claim, it is incumbent on me to provide the evidence. (See also ‘burden of proof‘).
In this example, I’d be committing the fallacy of argument from ignorance.
Here’s a helpful page.
21 April 2006 at 9:05 am
Ah. You believe the absence of god to be the default, and therefore all other propositions are the ones that must be proven. To do this, I guess you had to make the decision that the existence of god is on par with the existence of blue fairies. Is this is because every so-called piece of evidence you’ve ever faced, you’ve been able to write off as ‘just anecdotal’?
Okay, I get what you’re saying. I think. If a believer spouts some ‘anecdotal evidence’, it is up to him or her to prove it, and until that happens you get to sit back and not believe it?
*grumble* That doesn’t seem very fair, especially as you got to pick the default by setting yourself impossible standards of proof which will never be reached. See, I’m satisfied that Jesus was resurrected (I keep coming back to this, please comment) because I think evidence against this claim could have been so easily found if there was any, because mass hallucination is not that powerful, and because all other claims (e.g. of impersonators) are essentially conspiracy theories. However, if you’re not satisfied, what happens? Do I have to go find more proof?
At what point do you have to disprove me?
21 April 2006 at 3:27 pm
Amy,
I dont think Daniel is saying that he has proven that god doesn’t exist. I beleive what he is saying is that until you have scientific evidence (observable, repeatable and verifiable) of the existance of anything the logical point of view would be that it doesn’t exist.
And yes, for this logical exercise it would be true that the existance of god would be on par with blue fairies, or the flying speghetti monster, or widget53. Its all the same if we want to rely on something other than how we feel about it.
Sorry if I stepped on toes Dan, I just had to get in on this one.
21 April 2006 at 3:47 pm
Jeff: No, go right ahead.
What is widget53?
Amy: It’s nice that you write in such a conversational style. It makes responding much easier. So I hope you don’t mind if I copy and paste your comment, and work off that.
Ah. You believe the absence of god to be the default,
Yes. Also known as the ‘null hypothesis‘.
and therefore all other propositions are the ones that must be proven.
Just that one. We want to see if the alternative hypothesis (that God exists) has sufficient evidence to reject the null.
To do this, I guess you had to make the decision that the existence of god is on par with the existence of blue fairies.
Yes. The existence of God, the existence of blue fairies, the existence of me myself; these are all ontological propositions that may be well- or poorly-supported by evidence.
Is this is because every so-called piece of evidence you’ve ever faced, you’ve been able to write off as ‘just anecdotal’?
No, this is because I find the evidence less-than-compelling. The evidence provided by my own religious experience, and those of other believers, can be accounted for by many of the cognitive biases and fallacies on the list. There’s nothing necessarily supernatural going on here.
Okay, I get what you’re saying. I think. If a believer spouts some ‘anecdotal evidence’, it is up to him or her to prove it, and until that happens you get to sit back and not believe it?
Yes. I would like to have a good reason to hold that belief before I accept it. Until there is, I’ll just say “That’s interesting.”
*grumble* That doesn’t seem very fair, especially as you got to pick the default by setting yourself impossible standards of proof which will never be reached.
Then I expect to see you at the Church of the Blue Fairies next Tuesday. That’s their holy day, ya see.
Keep in mind that if a phenomenon is really valid, it always works. No one ever gets all funny about having to have faith in gravity because it always works, every time. People do get funny about having to believe in (say) prayer because sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, and you have to look at the data funny in order to fool yourself into thinking there’s a pattern. Examine it rigourously, though, and it falls apart.
See, I’m satisfied that Jesus was resurrected (I keep coming back to this, please comment)
It’s possible. How could we find out?
because I think evidence against this claim could have been so easily found if there was any,
Argumentum ad ignorantium.
because mass hallucination is not that powerful,
Ad populum fallacy.
How do you know that mass hallucination isn’t that powerful?
What about an initial local hallucination combined with about 80 years of word-of-mouth?
It doesn’t have to be hallucination. Just a story that someone started and others believed. Like Roswell.
and because all other claims (e.g. of impersonators) are essentially conspiracy theories.
This sounds interesting. You mean, someone is said to have impersonated Jesus after his death? I don’t know much about this.
However, if you’re not satisfied, what happens? Do I have to go find more proof?
No, we have to decide what good evidence would look like, and then see if there is any.
At what point do you have to disprove me?
I hope you don’t mean ‘disprove you’. I’m fairly well-satisfied that you exist. 🙂
But if I make a claim, I should be prepared to back it up with empirical evidence, and explain why alternative explanations for my claim aren’t valid.
This is harder for historical claims. Perhaps a historian reading this could help. How can we evaluate historical claims? I Googled, but for every article like this, there’s one like this. Bluurg. So any links are welcome.
Amy, it’s good to have you on the blog.
21 April 2006 at 5:56 pm
Dan and Amy
widget53 is just an X type example (plug in any value)
On the other side of Daniels arguement however is scientific Vs. clinical.
Many times doctors will use their clinical experiance to treat patients. “I know that most of the time a patient presenting with these symptoms can be helped if I do x,y and z”
There may be no studies that prove any of this but the doctor is using years of clinical experiance…always with the idea in the back of thier head that what they think might be doing the actual good might not be the cause at all.
I think this is a good example of where the practicality of clinical diognosis can be a good choice. This may be relatable to the question of “things that aren’t proven scientificly. Like the existance of Gods.
22 April 2006 at 12:19 am
I don’t see these as similar.
If a doctor thinks she has a method that helps, this can be verified with a good ol’ double-blind study. If I have an intuition about the FSM’s existence, I can’t really verify that.
I see what you’re saying: experiences aren’t useless. They’re quite useful. They just don’t always mean what we think.
I see it as a hierarchy:
facts
logical argument
experiences
intuitions and guesses
Even people who are trained in the sciences are subject to the same biases as everyone else. The intuition is the starting point, but it’s not good evidence until verified.
(Ha! The word-verification code is ‘facttn’. Coincidence?)
22 April 2006 at 12:40 pm
Nice response to Amy, Dan – your classes must be very inspiring. Historical evidence is at its most basic level like any other kind of evidence. There is primary and secondary evidence and so on. Primary evidence is, for example, uncovering a stone structure which is carbon dated to a certain period and reading the inscription on the wall which says ‘this is the tomb of King Mubnottheptothembathnet’. Secondary evidence is reading the journal of a traveller which says ‘As I passed through the area of Bibnothing a local showed me the entrance to a tomb which was reputed to be that of King M. The door was impassible because it was half covered in sand.’ Tertiary evidence would be ‘I spoke to a local who said that local legend spoke of a buried tomb’. and so on.
I think the difficulty with Biblical evidence is that it is mixed up with historical evidence. There is evidence for the existence of people and structures which have been verified through archeology which has uncovered primary evidence or very compelling secondary evidence (see the photo of Jesus’s baptism spot on my blog). This leads those who want to prove the supernatural aspects to say that because there is evidence for historical facts, the whole bible must be true (provide the fallacy name here…..)
The resurrection of Christ is far more plausibly explained through natural causes such as that he wasn’t completely dead when removed from the cross or that he was practiced in meditative techniques etc. You only have to watch Derren Brown on TV to see how easy it is to create ‘miracles’, That american magician – can’t recall his name this minute (stood on a pillar..) uses techniques that were documented as used by magicians in ancient egypt, until very recently in India ‘holy men’ would perform miracles such as burying their head in sand, piercing etc. which have been shown to be easily explainable. For years there has been a busy trade in peddling the supernatural to the gullible. Nowadays it’s called selling cosmetics – as the salesman said to Marge Simpson ‘It contains over 37 Ingredients!’
23 April 2006 at 4:28 am
The resurrection of Christ is far more plausibly explained through natural causes such as that he wasn’t completely dead when removed from the cross or that he was practiced in meditative techniques etc.
Snowqueen– you mean the Swoon Theory?
Unfortunately, this links to something far less sophisticated than what I’ve read in books, but I can go into it in great detail, if you like 🙂
Daniel–
//
Me: See, I’m satisfied that Jesus was resurrected…
You: It’s possible. How could we find out?
Me: …because I think evidence against this claim could have been so easily found if there was any,
You: Argumentum ad ignorantium.
//
That’s why I pointed out the Copi bit.
In some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence despite searching, as positive evidence towards its non-occurrence.
So, yes, what kind of proof would you need? A body? No body was found, or this whole stupid thing would have nipped in the bud. But, it could have been stolen, and pretty easily disposed of such that it could never be found again. So then we need a culprit. I can’t think of anyone. You tell me:
Who? And more importantly, how and why?
You: How do you know that mass hallucination isn’t that powerful?
Here is one of the most extensive refutations of the mass hallucination theory I can find, for you to read at your leisure. (PDF file, btw.) Mostly psychiatrists aren’t convinced about mass hallucinations; I’ll see if I can find you some primary data to that effect.
//
Me: …and because all other claims (e.g. of impersonators) are essentially conspiracy theories.
You: This sounds interesting. You mean, someone is said to have impersonated Jesus after his death? I don’t know much about this.
//
No, I made that up. The hallucination theory does not convince me, but I thought maybe if there was, you know, an impersonator, they may have just mistaken it for Jesus. After all, three times they initially didn’t recognise the guy (which is one of my big problems with mass hallucination– why couldn’t they hallucinate him right?). But I don’t seriously consider the impersonator theory to stand up to any argument.
How can we evaluate historical claims? Hmm. That’s tough, and I can’t yet answer you. I don’t know enough about historical evidence. But whole books have been written on the subject, so give me a couple of years…
What I’m working with now is the idea that if the resurrection was bollocks, and the disciples were talking about this bollocks, making some really quite definite and specific claims, and they were doing all this while there were still people alive to refute their claims, then, where are the refutations?
I guess you can dislike historical claims. I’m pretty sure they stand up to scrutiny, but you can say you want current evidence for God, and okay, fair enough, so do I. However, the whole point of Christianity is the historicity of Christ, so if that’s the religious path you want to wander down, then in the end, that’s what you’ve got to look at. I think the best and easiest way to prove the existence of God is to prove the existence and resurrection of Christ, and you certainly don’t have to commit ‘intellectual suicide’ to do so. (I love your definition of faith. It’s just so awful.)
24 April 2006 at 2:48 pm
First of all, can I just say how cool it is that this is the first thread with more than ten comments. I guess there’s nothing like the Big Questions to bring out the commenters.
Also, this is the kind of stuff that you’re supposed to hash out at night during your first semester in the dorm. I’m know I’m twenty years past that phase, but you have to give me a break because I went to BYU, and we just didn’t have these kinds of conversations in the dorm!
Amy, I’ve had to think about your comments because there was something I knew I was missing — some assumption there that I couldn’t unpack, which is always a pain. The feeling I was getting was that of listening to — pardon the comparison, because it’s not very good — someone explaining how homeopathy works. They talk about similars, and the memory of water, and how a water molecule acts like a magnet, and so on. But I try to stop them and say, “Wait — you’re explaining how homeopathy works, but first you have to show that it actually does work. First show that it’s real and not just made up, and then we can start talking about mechanisms.”
So here I read people writing about the ‘Swoon’ theory, and disciples not recognising Jesus, and such things in the New Testament being described as though they really happened just as written, and then how do we prove or disprove them given that those things happened just as they were written down. And that was the crucial assumption. I don’t think we’re to that point. I think they call it ‘begging the question‘. We’re starting by looking at the New Testament as a factual record, like a newspaper or history book, but that’s actually what we’re trying to establish, so we can’t start from there.
I mention the ‘history book’ idea because I’m reminded of an article I read in Sunstone years ago (but I can’t find it now). The author doubts the ‘slaughter of the innocents‘ story, and his reasoning is that historical claims need to be corroborated. Matthew says Herod killed all these babies, but no one else does. Okay, that doesn’t prove anything — something could still be true even if only one source (or no source) says so. But it would lend weight to the historical claim if someone else wrote about it. Even Josephus, who was meticulous in detailing Roman atrocities, fails to mention it at all.
Why would anyone make up such a story? Well, this author suggests that the writers (or should I say compilers) of the Gospels weren’t so much trying to create a factual record, but rather to glorify their subject. They were trying to show how great Jesus was — remember how Moses had Pharaoh after him when he was a baby? and there’s a scripture that says, “A prophet will I raise up like unto Moses”, and the writers are saying, “See, Jesus was that great.” Now I don’t know if they were doing that, and I don’t mean to say that they were dishonest, but I think it’s a mistake to assume that they were trying to accomplish the same goals that we would.
So now we’re back to the Resurrection. Could people have just made up the stories about Jesus? And my answer would be, “Well, people have made up a lot of amazing stories.” But it would be nice to have someone else corroborating it. And not just Jesus rising — all the other people climbing out of their graves and appearing to many — and Jesus appearing to 500 people. Wouldn’t this make a bit of a noise outside of Christian circles? Why isn’t anyone else writing about this besides the New Testament writers? (Or maybe they did, and it got lost.)
Why would anyone make up such a story? Well, people have made up some pretty amazing stories. And this is an amazing story! People like it! I like it! Hey, not having to die sounds great! I can see why people would start it and keep it going.
Why didn’t anyone refute the claims? Well, I’ve read that the earliest of the four Gospels was written around 80 CE, almost 50 years after the events described. By that time, it might have been difficult to find people who had been adults in 30 AD, or perhaps the refutations might have been lost or suppressed. But now I’m the one being hypothetical.
The resurrection of Jesus, if it happened, would be something that had never happened before. It goes against the pattern that we all know about. Things don’t usually live again after they die. It’s a big deal. And I think it was Carl Sagan who said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Extraordinary evidence would require more than one source. Especially one that’s not very internally consistent, though I won’t harp on that point.
The fact is, people do make up stories and pass them on. Some get believed, some don’t. Christianity did.
24 April 2006 at 10:24 pm
Haven’t got anything to add to your arguments but thought I’d add to your excitement by getting the comments up to 12.
🙂
25 April 2006 at 3:49 am
True, true. And I think unfortunately my answer is going to be more wishy-washy and roundabout than you’d like, but here we go.
First, we can establish, through non-Christian sources, that the disciples did at least tell the story of Jesus– i.e. it wasn’t someone 100 odd years later who invented the disciples.
Flavius Josephus (AD 37-100): “…those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive.” (Antiquities, xviii.ch. 3, subtopic 3, Arabic text)
Cornelius Tacticus (AD 55?-117?): “Hence to suppress the rumor [that Nero had burned down Rome], [Nero] falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also” (Annals XV.44).
Okay, so having established (no?) that the disciples did tell this story, we can also determine that they at least suffered for it.
Flavius Josephus, in describing the actions of the high priest Ananus with regards to Jesus’ brother James, says, “…[Ananus] assembled a council of judges, and brought before it the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, whose name was James, together with some others, and having accused them as law-breakers, he delivered them over to be stoned.” (Antiquities XX 9:1)
Suetonius (AD120): “Punishmen by Nero was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.” (Lives of the Caesars (26.2))
Does this get us back to the right spot? That there were disciples who did tell the story that they had seen Jesus three days after his crucifixion, and were willing to suffer for it? From here can we go on to speculate what they really saw?
Unfortunately in 70 AD, the Romans basically razed Jerusalem and most of Israel. So, very few sources and no refutations. Yeah, that’s pretty bad for my argument.
Would like to point out, by the way, that the book of Acts, which as you know goes on to describe what the disciples did after the gospel stories, was most likely written AD 62 or previously, because it does not include– the fall of Jerusalem, the death of Peter (AD 65), Paul (AD 64), or James (AD 62). This kinda suggests that the gospel of Luke was written before AD 62.
Of course. All those contradictions…
(Sorry for hijacking your blog. I have more confidence in my writing skills than my speaking …Do first years still sit up at night talking about this stuff? I always wanted to be a student at Cambridge in the 30s for pretty much this reason. I don’t think they did anything else there.)
25 April 2006 at 3:45 pm
Don’t worry, Amy — it’s only a thread hijack.
Yep, I’d be willing to go with you that the disciples did go around telling the story. Great quotes. Can’t argue with that.
Which proves that… people believed it. That’s something, anyway. We are now in a position to start speculating. 🙂
the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.
I found this description amusing.
Would like to point out, by the way, that the book of Acts, which as you know goes on to describe what the disciples did after the gospel stories, was most likely written AD 62 or previously, because it does not include– the fall of Jerusalem, the death of Peter (AD 65), Paul (AD 64), or James (AD 62). This kinda suggests that the gospel of Luke was written before AD 62.
Well, maybe not. Paul’s death is actually alluded to in Acts 28:24-5, which suggests that Luke knew about it. The Oxford Companion to the Bible suggests after 70 CE rather than before.
I’m just amazed that people are able to do Biblical scholarship; it’s all so murky back there.
Like your style, by the way.