Does Science/Statistics Prove a Supernatural Intervention?

[Shadow Wolf]

Well we are certainly the result of some alien interference whether natural or intelligent who knows.

Who knows? I also thought the Family Guy Big Bang was hilarious. God farted to win an arm wrestling contest by gagging his opponent, asked for a lighter, and when he ignited his next fart the result was the Big Bang and the creation of the universe. Now if it was something like that that got us here, then that would mean life is a big fart joke and Kevin Smith is the most holiest of holy prophets.

 

[brbubba]

Certainly?:areyoucra

The earth was seeded by extraterrestrial matter. Whether that contained any form of life who knows, but on a basic level it's what helped create current conditions on earth.

 

[tumbleweed41]

Well we are certainly the result of some alien interference whether natural or intelligent who knows.

Certainly?:areyoucra

The earth was seeded by extraterrestrial matter. Whether that contained any form of life who knows, but on a basic level it's what helped create current conditions on earth.

By that standard, all matter on Earth is extraterrestrial. Stars make the stuff we are all made of.

 

[Bunyip]

Wow! A truly catastrophic failure of reasoning. No mate, you can not prove the supernatural by elimination - that is called a ' god of the gaps' fallacy.

Proof of the supernatural by elimination = god of the gaps fallacy, an argument from ignorance.

An argument from ignorance you defend only by appeal to authority.

 

[steve hinrichs]

The article does not promote an “argument from ignorance” or “God of the Gaps argument”. To say my argument is so without addressing the principles in my reasoning is just stating an argument by definition which is not a valid critic. The article does not promote the idea if there is no known natural explanation, then there must me a supernatural explanation. The article discusses the procedures to go through to determine what are all the possible natural explanations. This is what scientist do normally in the common process of elimination. If scientist have properly done this and eliminate all natural explanations except for one, then they are correct to conclude the one remaining natural explanation is the correct natural explanation. My article just extends this to eliminate just one more natural explanation, the last remaining one, then they are correct to conclude there is evidence for supernatural intervention. .


So if you reject the approach my article proposes for identifying supernatural intervention, then you are essentially rejecting the scientific approach.


I agree many times religious people have promoted arguments for the supernatural that are “arguments from ignorance” or “God of the Gaps arguments”. My article provides a means to show these arguments are not sufficient. My article provides sufficient reasoning for identifying supernatural intervention.


Scientific arguments do come in different strength as most always they use probabilities as part of the reasoning to eliminate other explanations.


If you reject this valid approach then you have a means for rejecting any possible evidence for the supernatural. For instance, if all the stars in the sky aligned and spelt out "God Exist" then one could just say this is not evidence for God because there still may be some unknown natural explanation. This would be an approach that is invincible to the evidence so would be unfalsifiable. The scientific process is supposed to be falsifiable.

 

[Marisa]

Improbable =/= impossible.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

If scientist have properly done this and eliminate all natural explanations except for one, then they are correct to conclude the one remaining natural explanation is the correct natural explanation. My article just extends this to eliminate just one more natural explanation, the last remaining one, then they are correct to conclude there is evidence for supernatural intervention. .

Science rarely has a finite list of natural explanations.

 

[Sapiens]

The article does not promote an “argument from ignorance” or “God of the Gaps argument”. To say my argument is so without addressing the principles in my reasoning is just stating an argument by definition which is not a valid critic. The article does not promote the idea if there is no known natural explanation, then there must me a supernatural explanation. The article discusses the procedures to go through to determine what are all the possible natural explanations.

This is what scientist do normally in the common process of elimination. If scientist have properly done this and eliminate all natural explanations except for one, then they are correct to conclude the one remaining natural explanation is the correct natural explanation. My article just extends this to eliminate just one more natural explanation, the last remaining one, then they are correct to conclude there is evidence for supernatural intervention. .


So if you reject the approach my article proposes for identifying supernatural intervention, then you are essentially rejecting the scientific approach.

Your's is a fool's errand. You run into the problem of proving a negative, something that can not be done. You can never determine ALL the possible natural explanations. There is always one more lurking under the next rock or over the next hill. Since you can not account for them all, your logic crumbles and you are left in full retreat into the very “argument from ignorance” or “God of the Gaps argument” that you claim to not promote.

I agree many times religious people have promoted arguments for the supernatural that are “arguments from ignorance” or “God of the Gaps arguments”. My article provides a means to show these arguments are not sufficient. My article provides sufficient reasoning for identifying supernatural intervention.

That is your claim. You claim has been shown to be false.

Scientific arguments do come in different strength as most always they use probabilities as part of the reasoning to eliminate other explanations.

That does not solve your problem, to validate your premise you must eliminate ALL possible natural explanations and that is impossible to do, some statistical subset does not cut the mustard.

If you reject this valid approach then you have a means for rejecting any possible evidence for the supernatural.

As has been demonstrated, your approach is not valid. That I've yet to see any possible evidence for the supernatural is another story entirely.

For instance, if all the stars in the sky aligned and spelt out "God Exist" then one could just say this is not evidence for God because there still may be some unknown natural explanation. This would be an approach that is invincible to the evidence so would be unfalsifiable. The scientific process is supposed to be falsifiable.

You are just trying to use the structure of the old argument that it is impossible to disprove the existance of a god. As Susan Jacoby said (long before you); “Of course an atheist can’t prove there isn’t a God, because you cannot prove a negative. The atheist basically says that based on everything I see around me, I don’t think so. Every rational thing I see and have learned about the world around me says there isn’t a God, but as far as proving there isn’t a God, no one can do that. Both the atheist and the agnostic say that.”
"

 

[Kuzcotopia]

The article does not promote an “argument from ignorance” or “God of the Gaps argument”. To say my argument is so without addressing the principles in my reasoning is just stating an argument by definition which is not a valid critic. The article does not promote the idea if there is no known natural explanation, then there must me a supernatural explanation. The article discusses the procedures to go through to determine what are all the possible natural explanations. This is what scientist do normally in the common process of elimination. If scientist have properly done this and eliminate all natural explanations except for one, then they are correct to conclude the one remaining natural explanation is the correct natural explanation. My article just extends this to eliminate just one more natural explanation, the last remaining one, then they are correct to conclude there is evidence for supernatural intervention. .


So if you reject the approach my article proposes for identifying supernatural intervention, then you are essentially rejecting the scientific approach.


I agree many times religious people have promoted arguments for the supernatural that are “arguments from ignorance” or “God of the Gaps arguments”. My article provides a means to show these arguments are not sufficient. My article provides sufficient reasoning for identifying supernatural intervention.


Scientific arguments do come in different strength as most always they use probabilities as part of the reasoning to eliminate other explanations.


If you reject this valid approach then you have a means for rejecting any possible evidence for the supernatural. For instance, if all the stars in the sky aligned and spelt out "God Exist" then one could just say this is not evidence for God because there still may be some unknown natural explanation. This would be an approach that is invincible to the evidence so would be unfalsifiable. The scientific process is supposed to be falsifiable.

So let me get this straight:

If I don't yet know for certain, I shouldn't continue to find out. Instead, I will accept a definitive, supernatural answer that requires me to ask no more questions.

That's an intellectually bankrupt idea masquerading as reason.

Having read your link, it is also clear that your position accepts biblical evidence as a possible explanation, and accepts that Jesus rose bodily from the dead. So is it statistically probable that a person who has been dead for 36-48 will come back to life?

Same standards, same rules.

 

[Sapiens]

So let me get this straight:

If I don't yet know for certain, I shouldn't continue to find out. Instead, I will accept a definitive, supernatural answer that requires me to ask no more questions.

That's an intellectually bankrupt idea masquerading as reason.

Having read your link, it is also clear that your position accepts biblical evidence as a possible explanation, and accepts that Jesus rose bodily from the dead. So is it statistically probable that a person who has been dead for 36-48 will come back to life?

Same standards, same rules.

More to the point, if Jesus rose bodily from the dead and ascended to heaven, where's heaven? Habeas corpus!

 

[David M]

I'm curious what everyone thinks of this.

If you consider the odds of your birth and they are probably pretty slim. Just for arguments sake, probably less than winning most lotteries. Now let's take that back to the odds of your parents' birth and so forth back to the beginning of the homosapien. Now we obviously know that the odds of successive events are measured through the product of the individual odds for each event. So we multiply all those odds together and we get a number, a very very small number.

Now I would argue that that number is so infinitesimally small that it would be equivalent to zero. So mathematics and statistics would effectively say that the likelihood of our individual existence is zero.

So since the odds for our individual existence are effectively zero, does that mean that other, potentially supernatural, forces were acting on our behalf???

If I were to be so arrogant as to assume that the only reason for the existence of the Universe was to produce me then your argument might make some sense, however since neither you or I are special to the Universe all you are doing is showing your ignorance of statistics.

 

[Sapiens]

If I were to be so arrogant as to assume that the only reason for the existence of the Universe was to produce me then your argument might make some sense, however since neither you or I are special to the Universe all you are doing is showing your ignorance of statistics.

Not really the issue is one of prospective or retrospective outlook. Since I am, my retrospective probability is one, despite the fact that my prospective probability was ten to some enormous negative power.

 

[McBell]

Never understood how someone thinks that calculating the odds after the fact to show it could not happen makes any sense.

 

[Sapiens]

Never understood how someone thinks that calculating the odds after the fact to show it could not happen makes any sense.

I wish I could bet on horse races on that basis.

 

[paarsurrey]

Dose Science Prove a Supernatural Intervention?

Science is not designed for that.
Regards

 

[viole]

Dose Science Prove a Supernatural Intervention?

Science is not designed for that.
Regards

And that is why it works so well.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Sapiens]

What is being missed is the difference between retrospective and prospective statistics ... they are not one and the same thing. The OP is trying to apply a prospective statistical analysis to a retrospective problem ... it does not work, it does not yield a meaningful result.

 

[Desert Snake]

There is no ''science'', for the creation, first cause. Just belief. Science isn't even in the ballgame.

 

[Bunyip]

There is no ''science'', for the creation, first cause. Just belief. Science isn't even in the ballgame.

I think you mean 'hypothesis'. Theoretical physics comes up with testable hypothesis, not 'beliefs'.

 

[FunctionalAtheist]

I'm curious what everyone thinks of this.

If you consider the odds of your birth and they are probably pretty slim. Just for arguments sake, probably less than winning most lotteries. Now let's take that back to the odds of your parents' birth and so forth back to the beginning of the homosapien. Now we obviously know that the odds of successive events are measured through the product of the individual odds for each event. So we multiply all those odds together and we get a number, a very very small number.

Now I would argue that that number is so infinitesimally small that it would be equivalent to zero. So mathematics and statistics would effectively say that the likelihood of our individual existence is zero.

So since the odds for our individual existence are effectively zero, does that mean that other, potentially supernatural, forces were acting on our behalf???

FacePalm!