Alpha

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

It's an inference from the success of science, or if you like, an inference to the best explanation.

Quite: 'planes fly, pills cure etc. Try inventing anything using "faith" instead and see where that gets you, which is why nothing of value comes from theocracies. Be interesting though if one theist said to the other, "would you like a ride in this aeroplane I've designed using only the tools of faith, intuition and experience" and then seeing the reply...

The big mistake - a straw man mistake in fact - is to mis-assert that the findings of science are also claimed to be definitive or absolute, as opposed to be more probabilistically true based on the feedback we obtain from the way the world appears at least to be. That's not to say for a minute that it's necessarily not invisible pixies making it all happen behind the scenes, but it is to say that naturalistic explanations are verifiable within the context of the way the universe appears to be in a way that non-naturalistic explanations are not.   

And yet the straw man response to this simple enough point recurs here time and time again.

Ah well...     

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Wiggs,

Quite: 'planes fly, pills cure etc. Try inventing anything using "faith" instead and see where that gets you, which is why nothing of value comes from theocracies. Be interesting though if one theist said to the other, "would you like a ride in this aeroplane I've designed using only the tools of faith, intuition and experience" and then seeing the reply...

The big mistake - a straw man mistake in fact - is to mis-assert that the findings of science are also claimed to be definitive or absolute, as opposed to be more probabilistically true based on the feedback we obtain from the way the world appears at least to be. That's not to say for a minute that it's necessarily not invisible pixies making it all happen behind the scenes, but it is to say that naturalistic explanations are verifiable within the context of the way the universe appears to be in a way that non-naturalistic explanations are not.   

And yet the straw man response to this simple enough point recurs here time and time again.

Ah well...   

It's not an ontology though.
Saying it's the basis for scientific realism is all very well but unless science can prove scientific realism, not only does it remain a belief but in fact a travesty of the virtue of science that it claims.

[wigginhall]

It's not an ontology though.
Saying it's the basis for scientific realism is all very well but unless science can prove scientific realism, not only does it remain a belief but in fact a travesty of the virtue of science that it claims.

It shows the use of abductive reasoning, which is probabilistic.   The classic example is that from 'the lawn is wet', we can infer that it rained last night.   But this is only probably true (or statistically), since somebody might have used a sprinkler on it. 

So you can't prove abductive reasoning, as you can with say, 'John is a bachelor' implies 'John is unmarried'. 

But I think that abductive reasoning is very widely used.   The philosopher Peirce actually claimed that it's universal, but I don't know about that. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Wiggs,

Quite: 'planes fly, pills cure etc. Try inventing anything using "faith" instead and see where that gets you, which is why nothing of value comes from theocracies. Be interesting though if one theist said to the other, "would you like a ride in this aeroplane I've designed using only the tools of faith, intuition and experience" and then seeing the reply...

The big mistake - a straw man mistake in fact - is to mis-assert that the findings of science are also claimed to be definitive or absolute, as opposed to be more probabilistically true based on the feedback we obtain from the way the world appears at least to be. That's not to say for a minute that it's necessarily not invisible pixies making it all happen behind the scenes, but it is to say that naturalistic explanations are verifiable within the context of the way the universe appears to be in a way that non-naturalistic explanations are not.   

And yet the straw man response to this simple enough point recurs here time and time again.

Ah well...   

I am not arguing against the success of science. You are deviously conflating science with scientism here.

Science is successful at what it does. It is successful in the same way Brobat toilet cleaner is successful. But using your own argument you would be better into Brobatism rather than scientism since it kills 99 percent of all known germs. Can science boast that level of success?