Standing To Reason - Keeping An Open Mind

A personal essay on the imagination and evidence-based thinking

• Category

  People & Blogs

[Ramshobraja]

Brilliant video. I love how narrow minded dogmatists tell scientists to be more open minded.

[camino1ca]

Good video.

[camino1ca]

That's incorrect. The bible is true because it says it is true cannot be verified by the bible, however in the other example the evidence of it's accuracy is evident, repeatable, independently confirmable, and consistent. The truth of it's accuracy is not a claim that the germ theory itself makes, as is the case with the bible, but rather based on results.

[Skymt]

Good point, JShankel! Most inventions comes from the inventor, and not something divine!

But your example is a bit off..

Newton predates the formalization of chemistry, so he didn't have much else to believe in, regarding the teachings of the elements.

But alchemy was not just a blind hunt for gold, they did discover a lot of chemical properties and reactions, and their records laid the foundation for modern chemistry...

(But I learned this from a docu I saw online, so dont blindly trust me!)

[sreinap]

Obviously Louis Pasteur was a Catholic (whose discoveries are made so much of in this video), which seems to make the whole argument invalid.

[UnBeguiled]

Like I said, we have the same world view, I don't have a better way.

Imagine an organism that did not rely on sense data? We acquire and evaluate sense data, or evidence, and respond. It's what we are, that's all.

It is the nature of an electron to have a negative charge. Humans get by in the world based on evidence. It is the nature of all living things to do so.

[UnBeguiled]

Yes, evidentialism is axiomatic for me as well. All living organisms must rely on it.

However, citing the success of germ theory is begging the question. You're basically saying "evidence shows that using evidence leads to understanding". You can't use science to prove science.

It's as nonsensical as saying "The bible is true because it says it's true".

[UnBeguiled]

Nice video. We have the same world view, but many do not. For the sake of conversation:

Why do you think an evidence based system of understanding is superior?

[Cafeeine]

Very well stated indeed.