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What kind of proof is needed?


RedSquirrel

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Science has become a religion.

That is simply a lie perpetuated to give you an excuse for trying to deny it. Science is based on checking and double checking and all sorts of measurements, not testimony.
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Whom does not matter. What matters is how.

Yeah but I am guessing your how involves ancient texts and a ton of anecdotes.

This very statement of yours cannot be vetted by science yet you are expecting people to accept it as true. Furthermore, your claim would disallow the documentation of history as history depends on the gathering of testimony as a source of evidence.

If the vetting method does not rely on established science you are merely working to validate belief not construct a general proof.

Demonstrably false. Your claims that testimony cannot establish truth cannot be studied by science so your own statement is pure imagination

Well, go ahead and demonstrate how false it is. We'll wait.

Your sage was confused. The plural of anecdote is anecdotes. The plural of testimony is testimonies.

No matter how deeply you choose go into the thesaurus, anecdotes are still the lowest form of evidence and 1000 of them don't weigh any more than 1 without something to back them up.

Vetting is about establishing plausibility. One way plausibility can be enhanced is through corroborating testimonies. Multiple eyewitness testimonies can and often do enhance the plausibility of a testimony.

In a court of law perhaps but not in the court of science.

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In a court of law the witnesses are cross examined. Witness testimony that cannot be cross examined is hearsay and not admissible.

We see no such thing on the TV shows and books and magazines pushing these things.

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Scientific data can be faked so according to you no scientific data can be trusted.

No, that is not how that works. Falsified research, such as much of what has been presented to support psychic abilities and other PSI phenomena is generally discarded. That is why there is peer review and minimum standards for acceptance. Because of that, there is a huge body of verified science that is woven into our daily lives. There is however, no defining work for the alleged paranormal. It remains in the realm of belief and fantasy.

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Yeah but I am guessing your how involves ancient texts and a ton of anecdotes.

Your guessing is unscientific.

Well, go ahead and demonstrate how false it is. We'll wait.

I did here

If the vetting method does not rely on established science you are merely working to validate belief not construct a general proof.

...

No matter how deeply you choose go into the thesaurus, anecdotes are still the lowest form of evidence and 1000 of them don't weigh any more than 1 without something to back them up.

Saying the same thing 1000 times does not make it true, agreed.

In a court of law perhaps but not in the court of science.

Courts of law are a super set of science in determining truth as anything submitted for peer reviewed science could be introduced into a court of law.

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In a court of law the witnesses are cross examined.

Cross examination is simply a procedural artifact of our adversarial system. Either, party in our adversarial system may decline to cross examine and the testimony still stands as evidence and remains for the jury to consider as evidence. In other words, the cross examination is part of the vetting process, which I said above needs to be done. The testimony remains as evidence to be considered.

Witness testimony that cannot be cross examined is hearsay and not admissible.

No, I'm sorry, that's not the definition of hearsay

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That is simply a lie perpetuated to give you an excuse for trying to deny it.

How do you know I deny science?

Science is based on checking and double checking and all sorts of measurements, not testimony.

...and faith that there is nothing outside of science.

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Well I dunno; if something can be faked it can be faked and as a result evidence that it wasn't faked has no value, it still could have been faked.

Scientific data can be faked so according to you no scientific data can be trusted.

No, that is not how that works. Falsified research, such as much of what has been presented to support psychic abilities and other PSI phenomena is generally discarded. That is why there is peer review and minimum standards for acceptance. Because of that, there is a huge body of verified science that is woven into our daily lives. There is however, no defining work for the alleged paranormal. It remains in the realm of belief and fantasy.

And it follows that just because something can be faked does not mean the de facto position is that it is faked.

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Cross examination is simply a procedural artifact of our adversarial system. Either, party in our adversarial system may decline to cross examine and the testimony still stands as evidence and remains for the jury to consider as evidence. In other words, the cross examination is part of the vetting process, which I said above needs to be done. The testimony remains as evidence to be considered.

Legal standards have no bearing on science standards.

No, I'm sorry, that's not the definition of hearsay

Right, hearsay is unsubstantiated claims presented as evidence. That kind of thing is ignored in law and science.

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And it follows that just because something can be faked does not mean the de facto position is that it is faked.

No, if something cannot be demonstrated, quantified, or somehow connected with established science it is very likely nonexistent. Saying a thing cannot be proven empirically does not give it a special pass as far as science is concerned. Believe alone is not enough.

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Sometimes consistent testimony of several people is of less value than just one. They obviously have coordinated their stories ahead of time.

This makes no sense. So if 10 people say they all saw a gunman walk into a bank it can't be true because they all have "obviously coordinated their stories ahead of time." Thank God our juries don't think that way.

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Legal standards have no bearing on science standards.

In as much as scientific evidence is a subset of all evidence it does.

Right, hearsay is unsubstantiated claims presented as evidence. That kind of thing is ignored in law and science.

That's not the definition either.

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No, if something cannot be demonstrated, quantified, or somehow connected with established science it is very likely nonexistent. Saying a thing cannot be proven empirically does not give it a special pass as far as science is concerned. Believe alone is not enough.

So Napoleon did not exist because all we have is testimony of his existence.

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So Napoleon did not exist because all we have is testimony of his existence.

And his own writings, his remains.. You might want to check your history.
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This makes no sense. So if 10 people say they all saw a gunman walk into a bank it can't be true because they all have "obviously coordinated their stories ahead of time." Thank God our juries don't think that way.

The difference there is we know bank robbers exist.

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In as much as scientific evidence is a subset of all evidence it does.

That's not the definition either.

Law strives for fact based decisions but it always comes down to the perceptions of the jury as shaped by the lawyers. Juries probably get it right far more often than not but science requires a much higher degree of certainty. Science is not based on opinion but verifiable fact.

Hearsay is indeed unsubstantiated testimony gathered second or third hand. Much like ghost stories.

Edited by sinewave
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This makes no sense. So if 10 people say they all saw a gunman walk into a bank it can't be true because they all have "obviously coordinated their stories ahead of time." Thank God our juries don't think that way.

So if all things are equal, how long do you think a judge would allow testimony about ghosts to go on in a court room? Unless there were some major mitigating circumstances, I would guess less than 10 seconds.

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