How important is evidence to your world view?

by snare&racket 69 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  cofty

  Good thread.

  I lean very heavily towards evidence - the way some do violence to the word evidence by equating it to listening to heavenly voices is anathema to me.

  During the past year I have had major decisions to make regarding medical treatment. The internet is awash with personal testimonies and anecdotes about my condition. To me it is all worthless. The only thing I care about is what do the major medical trials have to say about my options and what can the science of epidemiology tell me about the likely outcomes of my decisions.

  Give me the numbers, help me understand them, I will weigh up the pros and cons and make a decision. Of course some factors can't be measured in the same way. Social factors like time off work and mental well-being can't be ignored.
• 

  snare&racket

  I think this is the root of all our differences...

  i once used to believe that science was unreliable, that evidence was mere speculation and probably wrong, therefore any 'evidence' that contradicted my beliefs could be easily put aside or ignored.

  what changed?

  well first my understanding of what science is. Anyone that says people used to believe the world was flat, therefore whatever science says now will be different in a hundred years... Well, they dont understand what science is. As I did not. This statement is so decieving and ignorant, though I used to say it myself. Modern science has took on the scientific method. A method of testing and questioning everything we hypothesise i.e. believe. To succeed at science is to find fault with a theory, because this leads to new answers.

  Science is not uust about evolution, it is everything from electric cars to chemotherapy. The same scientific method, the EXACT same method, is used throughout.

  Science is tested in numerous ways. One is via statistics. Every good scientific paper evaluates its p-value , its probability of being true. Every good science paper is peer reviewed then published for sll to test snd find fault with. Once it is found to be 'wanting' ..... The paper is redacted with an explination as to why.

  All these papers and all this research is open to the world to see....

  The cochrane database

  www.sciencedirect.com

  Webofknowledge

  pubmed

  This collection of evidence also gives us, ME, the means to see HOW they came to the condlusions they came to.

  For me these reasons and others, i have to put evidence, that is evidence I have checked over myself, above things like scripture, gutmfeeling, faith, opinion, anecdotal evidence etc. it doesnt mean science cant be wrong or that I am closed minded, I am VERY interested in things science has not, cannot, explain.

  interestingly, once i took this standpoint, i used evidence to make big desicions in my life. Historical, radiodating, biological, astrophysics evidences led me to denounce the bible as a book very earthly. It was not a hard decision once the evidence is examined.

  This viewpoint I adopted also naturally led me to accept evolution. I did several experiments in the lab myself, I have met or spoken to leading evolutionary scientists such as Dawkins, Myers, Steve Jones etc. i have gone and touched the evidence for myself in museums. I wish I had an alternate theory or could prove them wrong, I would be the next Darwin, Einstein... But on examinng the evidence, I found I was coming to the same conclusions as Darwin, Dawkins, Pz Myers..... Everyone. It is just logical. The deeper we dig, the further back in time we go, the deeper we dig, the simpler life gets. We never find animals at the wrong depth or time zone. Also as life gets more complex through the layers, you can see slight alterations to species. We now have the DNA. To examine and we can see those small changes, the map of changes to species based on DNA is the same as one based on the theory of evolution!

  In the Jehovah's Witnesses, the phrase "I don't know." Is used very little. It is seen as a flaw in the religion, a gap in the understanding, room for querying an error!mevery gap is filled with something, whether it be a poor answer just to fill the gap or simply explained by a 'miracle' or something that will be revealed post armageddon. In reality this is a big red flag, anyone that says they have all the answers....are liars. Its that simple. The worse thing is,we knew they didnt have all the answers, but we kept reapeating the same lines. I knew they couldnt explain why Jehovah killed Davids baby as punishment for Davids sin.... But I could jerry-rig an answer on the spot. In fact the skill of making up plugs for gaps on the spot is a skill all JWs have and use everytime they are on the ministry. "Blood fractions are made in a lab!" Being an example I heard when I recently asked a JW if blood fractions came from blood donations?

  Anyway, this post, this reply is NOT me saying "this is how you should examine evidence!" And I'm not saying anyone with alternate views are wrong. This is how I have come to believe what I believe.

  I truly think that this issue lies at the heart of our differing beliefs.

  snare x
• 

  snare&racket

  Ps Ferdinando

  if you are implying medicine, despite modern science, still hasnt stopped death... Then well done. I would suggest you look at birth mortality rates, average life expectancy, death in childbirth (developed v developing countries), measures of quality of life years etc as a measure of its success. Or dont.

  Chronic disease means a disease that is present a long time. Asthma is a chronic disease. It may lead to COPD another chronic disease and then heart failure (cor pulmonaale). This person would die of a chronic disease, probably aged 75. Without medicine, the steroids, the broncho dilators, the mucolytics, the long term oxygen therapy, how long would they have lived? Also, with what quality of life?

  Just because we can keep people alive forever with chronic disease, doesnt mean they wont eventually die from it and doesnt mean the scientific method is flawed.

  Who told you this misintepretation of science and medicine? Where did you read it? This is a fine example of choosing your source of evidence in regard to your world view and the i portance of critically appraising it. If you are going to take facts (chronic disease mortality rates) and ascribe significance to them (the success of scientific method) in an area of study you are not an expert (medical statistics), be very careful about who you take those facts and statements from or examine those facts inside out. I personally would reccomend the latter for all facts.

  snare x
• 

  trailerfitter

  I once had a metaphysical view about the world until I realised that most of it was made up. Science has taken humanity further with medicene in 60 years than any faith has given in 2000 years. If science can put a man on the moon, measure and actually see the physicla universe than I am of th opinion that they are not trying to expell god out of any universe. Just god happens to be ,...well. Just absent.
• 

  snare&racket

  Sorry, i attempted to go back and fix all the grammar but it timed out because I got sidetracked by something I wanted to add...

  Regarding radiodating and dna evidence (re evolution). I obviously could not accept it at face value and learned much from critically appraising these two scientific methods.

  Radio dating is done with up to 32 elements, not just carbon. This may explain the JW silence on anti carbon dating methods. Anyone from the JWs that experienced the 80s and 90s will remember the WT attempting to put a science hat on and debunk carbon dating. Something they dont even attempt anymore! This is why they dont......we now explore the decay of 32 elements!!. How accurate is the method? The rate of decay and half lives of materials are measured in the same way that medication is. We dont want to give someone a second dose if the first has not yet decayed away... Even a small amount of toxicity can kill. Paracetamol for example is VERY toxic at low levels. When we give people chemotherapy or radiotherapy, we use the same calculations and methods as we do for radiodating. Kind of puts things into perspective a little. Do you doubt the 150 million year old dinosaur bone, but pop a pill with confidence? I used to.... What a dumb ass!

  Exploring the evidence of DNA sequencing led me to some amazing insights and facts. Please take a peak at this one, explained well in this short clip.

  http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=zi8FfMBYCkk&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dzi8FfMBYCkk&gl=GB

  snare x

  ps on ipad so cant make it a clicky
• 

  Band on the Run

  I try to research as much as possible. Law school brainwashed me into being very detail oriented. I like acknowledging the arguments against my view. Sometimes I wish I were not so cerebral. It is my choice, however. I do believe that we are wired for spirituality, a question for communion. When I was with the Witnesses, the pull between parents and teachers, country vs. Bethel, science v. WT craziness was very painful for me. I was too young to resolve it.

  I just found communities where hard questions were welcomed, not seen as evil. Physical surroundings affect me. I adore real organ music, not that electric organ stuff where a piano would sound better. Most of the church sees offering our worldly gifts as a very good thing. Compare Leonardo DaVinci, Michaelangelo, or Raphael with a WT illustration.

  I am welcome with all my desire for proof. IN fact, besides John's gopsel, I am a partisan of doubting Thomas.

  Science and Christianity should be on the same page. The process is different. I am a newspaper and newscast junkie.
• 

  botchtowersociety

  I'd wager every one on this board believes human beings other than themselves have minds like their own.

  Minds, however, cannot be weighed or measured in any sort of quantitative way. They are immaterial. Yet all of us are aware of our own minds, which is something we directly experience in a subjective fashion. This is not normally the case with the minds of others.

  All of us, in this respect, believe in the existence of something without scientific evidence proof.
• 

  snare&racket

  "without scientific evidence."

  Now if you had said "without ALL the scienific evidence" then I would agree. But then no science or subject claims to have all the evidence. So I shall take you word for word and assume you mean there is NO scientific evidence for the mind.

  I assume you have not read any neurology or psychiatry textbooks or papers. I am not going to do the work for you, as proven over and over on this board. Research and hard work that can take months/years to accumilate, yet explained in a single post, can be easily dismissed by the questioner. However, had they done the months/years of researching and reading, it would not be so easy to dismiss.

  So I suggest you go and see what evidence we do have for the mind, it exists and there is scientific evidence for its existance.

  P.s. just as a bonus piece of info, the figuritive 'heart' and the mind is exactly the same thing. A human heart is a pump, like a water pump in a car or an oil pump in a car or like a pump for your swimming pool.... Th egyptians, quite wrongly, thought that emotions and ideas came from the heart and hence held it in such high regard. In reality you just have a mind, one mind. There is no real heart v mind battle, just contemplation of the mind. Anyone wanting to know more about the mind can ask botchtower in about 6 months when he has finished his reading. But alas, the bible is once again fiction, the heart is just a pump... damn you priests and scribes !

  Snare x
• 

  botchtowersociety

  I assume you have not read any neurology or psychiatry textbooks or papers. I am not going to do the work for you, as proven over and over on this board. Research and hard work that can take months/years to accumilate, yet explained in a single post, can be easily dismissed by the questioner. However, had they done the months/years of researching and reading, it would not be so easy to dismiss.

  P.s. just as a bonus piece of info, the figuritive 'heart' and the mind is exactly the same thing. A human heart is a pump, like a water pump in a car or an oil pump in a car or like a pump for your swimming pool.... Th egyptians, quite wrongly, thought that emotions and ideas came from the heart and hence held it in such high regard. In reality you just have a mind, one mind. There is no real heart v mind battle, just contemplation of the mind. Anyone wanting to know more about the mind can ask botchtower in about 6 months when he has finished his reading. But alas, the bible is once again fiction, the heart is just a pump... damn you priests and scribes !

  How wonderfully condescending and dismissive.

  So we have quantitative empirical measurements of minds or things we consider properties of minds? That's news to me.
• 

  snare&racket

  "That's news to me."

  I dont doubt it. Follow instructions above........

  Dismissive? How so? Because I dont accept there is NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE for the mind? Should I just rewind and delete the scientific data I have studied so as to not be 'dismissive'.

  I have said it before, ignorance is not a crime, nor an insult botch. I know nothing about horse racing! But if I am going to talk about horse racing, I really should read up on it first.