JJ Lowder Again

JJ Lowder now says,

The accusation is not, “Stan responded neither to the analysis nor the list of empirical evidence; therefore, Stan lied.” Rather, the accusation is this: “Stan says that no one produced any case in defense of atheism, but Lowder did and Stan knows it. ”

While we are at the truth claim stage, I guess I will just call that statement by Lowder what it is: a lie. Here’s the entire exchange, which, unless he deleted it remains on his blogspace:

Stan:
” After I posted a number of comments with various commenters requesting the standard evidence and logic for support of their beliefs, everyone but two of them just went away: vanished. The two who remained educated me on the actual purpose of the forum, and then went into silly mode, as do most atheists who are challenged with producing the actual evidence and logic which they claim is their domain.”

Lowder:
“This is an outright lie. Again, I refer interested readers to the comment I posted above two days ago. Stan may be fooling himself, but I doubt he's fooling anyone else.”

And again, here is the standard request for evidence which I made, over and over:

” In general atheists claim that atheism is based on evidence and logic. Were that the case, and were atheism a robust truth, then there would be both empirical, experimental, falsifiable and not falsified, replicable and replicated, peer reviewed with open data, physical evidence (under physicalism); and/or a disciplined deductive argument which is of valid construction, grounded and demonstrably true premises, which passes the test of Argumentum Ad Absurdum. “

Neither Lowder nor anyone else provided empirical, scientific, experimental….etc. data; and in fact he goes on to claim, apparently, that neither induction nor deduction are scientific terms, induction for the use of the classification sciences (“No, Stan, induction is NOT a “classification tool.”) [Yes, it is, JJ, in the naïve form called “instantiation model; Lipton; “Inference to the Best Explanation” International Library of Philosophy, p 14] and the theoretical sciences (deduction) (“This has nothing to do with “declaring a hypothesis” and then “investigating it to determine its truth value.”)[Deductive science doesn’t do hypotheses? Really? And neither does Inductive? Then why do you talk about hypotheses in this very post?]. Whether that is what he meant or not is not certain, but it is heavily implied.

He is tautologically correct to say that inductive logic is logic, and deductive logic is logic, but that is trivial. The production of objective knowledge requires objective observations which are managed by objective techniques. Since the Enlightenment, it has been generally agreed that objective knowledge has been generated by empiricism, which produces investigation by prediction (hypotheses, JJ), experimental testing for hypothesis prediction vs. experimental results, falsifiability with experimental non-falsification, and intellectual products that are available to everyone to examine for themselves.

Moving on to Bayes:

Stan:
” Bayesian probability theory is an attempt to reconcile the tension between a hypothesis and its alternative(s).

JJ:
”Ummm, no. Bayesian probability theory uses Bayes’s Theorem to measure the effect of new information upon one’s degree of belief in a hypothesis.”

Wait, you just said no to hypotheses, right? Never mind. But the following seems to place your definition on the back burner:

From Abelson; “Statistics as Principled Argument” p42:

”The theorem [Bayes’ Theorem] addresses the problem introduced earlier, namely, how to take into account the competition between a hypothesis and its alternatives. A given set of data is seen as altering the odds (i.e. the relative likelihood) that a hypothesis is true, compared with its alternatives. To apply Bayes’ Theorem, one needs some estimate of these odds before the data are collected. The data then may tip the balance in these odds depending on the relative likelihood of the data under the hypothesis and its alternatives”

Pretty much what I had said myself.

From Harri Valpoa;

http://users.ics.aalto.fi/harri/thesis/valpola_thesis/node12.html: Beliefs are always subjective, and therefore all the probabilities appearing in Bayesian probability theory are conditional. In particular, under the belief interpretation probability is not an objective property of some physical setting, but is conditional to the prior assumptions and experience of the learning system. It is completely reasonable to talk about ``the probability that there is a tenth planet in the solar system'' although this planet either exists or does not exist and there is no sense in interpreting the probability as a frequency of observing a tenth planet. Sometimes the probabilities can be roughly equated with empirical frequencies, but this can be considered as a special case of the belief interpretation as was shown by Cox [19].

One way to look at the circularity of induction is the Justification Paradox: induction cannot be justified using induction (Hume). Another circularity issue with induction (as previously mentioned) is the issue of the possibility of confirmation bias (and disconfirmation bias) due to non-objective probability assignments (also Observer Selection Bias); these possibilities raise suspicions which have little release for the skeptic, so only the true believer is satisfied with the induction, which self-fulfills.

Stan:
” This is an Argumentum Ad Absurdum falsification for the use of Bayes, at least for ideologies.”

JJ:
”1. This point has nothing to do with the arguments I provided, which rely solely upon objective factors to determine the relevant probabilities.”

Here he ignores a blatant falsification of his method using Ad Absurdum, and instead refers to his own argument, claiming that they are based on "objective factors". OK. So let’s look at the new one he provides:

(1) Evolution is antecedently much more probable on the assumption that naturalism is true than on the assumption that theism is true.

This is not evidence, it is an assertion of prejudice. Evolution itself cannot predict a single outcome, and in fact predicts every outcome, including no outcome; further, it cannot even predict and produce a mechanism for thousands of required parallel modifications to minerals that are required to produce mere life, much less conscious qualia, intellect and agency. In terms of fact, naturalism cannot be demonstrated to be correct using naturalism as its premise. Further there is no disconnect between a creator for nature, and the natural behavior of the universe and its components as observed. Evolution in no manner excludes a deity, and it is the exclusion of deity which defines naturalism. There is no reason to make the assumption being made in (1).

”(2) The statement that pain and pleasure systematically connected to reproductive success is antecedently much more probable on the assumption that evolutionary naturalism is true than on the assumption that evolutionary theism is true.”

This isn’t even a sentence:The statement that (pain and pleasure systematically connected to reproductive success) is a fragment, not a sentence; assuming the intended verb was to have been “are”, the resulting statement is still not universally correct, anyway, given that mitosis likely is a programmed function, not driven by external sensate experiences. And it is not necessary to argue for evolutionary theism to see the fallacy within this argument. Even so, the proposal that the concept of pleasure, for example, is known to be not associated with theism is false, or at least is without any possible reasoning in its defense, other than mere denial. These first two items in the inductive argument are not evidential in the least; they are purely prejudicial and without any cause for belief other than pure prejudice. So the following conclusion of this HYPOTHESIS, cannot follow, except under the prejudice of the premises.

”(3) Therefore, evolution conjoined with this statement about pain and pleasure is antecedently very much more probable on the assumption that naturalism is true than on the assumption that theism is true. [From 1 and 2]

The conclusion, (3) is prejudicially supported, only, nothing else.

(4) Naturalism is at least as plausible as theism.

Why? If naturalism is the explanation, how does it explain naturalism? It cannot. Because evolution succumbs to rational inquiry due to the reasons above, and naturalism is circular, as is induction, and because the prior argument is purely prejudicial and without a shred of empirical proof, experimental data, and is not falsifiable, much less replicable, there is no rational reason to accept naturalism as plausible at all. Naturalism is an assertion and nothing more, no physical, empirical disciplined differentiating data is possible to support the assertion of naturalism. And that goes in spades for metaphysical naturalism. Repeat: No empirical physical data is possible for the conclusion that naturalism is a true proposition. Thus, none of the remaining statements have any meaning:

”(5) Therefore, other evidence held equal, naturalism is very much more probable than theism. [From 3 and 4] (6) Naturalism entails that theism is false. (7) Therefore, other evidence held equal, it is highly probable that theism is false. [From 5 and 6] Whether one agrees with this argument or not, the probability calculations in this argument aren’t subjective. They’re either objectively true or objective false.”

(5) is based on prejudiced premises, and is thus trivial; (6) is just a definition: naturalism is defined as having no God: an assertion, only.

(6) This conclusion, even removed from its previous shady premises, is faulty. It is not the case that finding natural phenomena proves naturalism and disproves theism; under theism, nature was created the way it is by a creating agent, therefore it is eminently compatible with theism that nature works the way it does. In no manner is naturalism shown to be necessary in the attempted exclusion of deity. The conclusion does not follow under the definition of theism and the arbitrary restriction of naturalism.

This is a great example of Disconfirmation Bias (a wordplay on the concept of Confirmation Bias). The argument ignores the intellectual problems which attach, including the aforementioned consciousness and qualia, intellect, agency, and other features of life that cannot be objectively evaluated under any naturalist or empirical physical testing, without the use of suspicious inferential bias. The arguments are not evidential, they are assertions without data, assertions without knowable likelihoods, and are solely asserted as the prejudice of the author’s opinions.

If there exist calculations somewhere for supporting each line item, there is little doubt that they do not reflect any objective, empirical, experimental, falsifiable but not falsified, replicable and replicated, peer review and open data for support of the naturalist claims being made. And there is no knowable way to produce real and realistic probabilities for Bayesian vessels, which are for prejudicial arguments when used in ideological terms. So, JJ, Objective? No. Evidential? No.

Now to continue with Lowder's complaint against me:

"2. If the use of Bayes’s Theorem were inappropriate for the philosophy of religion, then theistic Bayesians like Richard Swinburne, the McGrews, and Richard Otte didn’t get the memo. Or … maybe it is appropriate and they understand Bayesian probability theory better than Stan does."

Or maybe it is an exercise in futility, because the opposition would accept absolutely no theodicy whatsoever, no matter how meticulously accurate it might be; the reason for that is seen in the declaration of naturalism: the non-existence of deity is declared; it is asserted as fact and then supporting premises are cherry picked, as shown above.

Neither rationality nor truth seeking are the objectives in these debates; getting an "apparent" big win regardless of the mangling of rational principles is the objective. The theologians are not playing to the atheists, they are playing to the undecideds just as are the atheists who are not playing to the theists. It is pure religious evangelism on both sides. Were the undecideds to tumble to the necessities of rational thought, including predictive, deductive necessities being placed on materialist philosophies, including the analysis of circularity, of self-refutation, of embedded bias, of non sequitur conclusions as demonstrated above, atheists would have a tough recruiting task, indeed.

At any rate, it is an Argument From Authority Fallacy, and some snark thrown in.