I am going to need more than a personal experience account, right? — Tom Storm
My point is that when enough anecdotal evidence piles up, it's OK to conclude something strange is going on. — RogueAI
Do we have good reason to deny all these anecdotes? — RogueAI
The plural of anecdote is not data. — Tom Storm
One person complaining to the city council about the new stoplight could be ignored, but 500 complaints means something got screwed up. The plural of anecdote clearly is data. — RogueAI
What would you believe after that conversation. — RogueAI
I think there is middle ground here. An observation in science is a tiny (rigorously controlled in good research) anecdote. We did X (with these testing protocols and Y happened 83% of the time.I think we are probably done. You think anecdotes count as good evidence, I don't consider them good evidence. I get it... :wink: — Tom Storm
We parent, vote, try to find romantic partners, succeed at work and in freetime activities, based on all sorts of anecdotal and other less than scientific research level rigor sources. — Bylaw
I believe you. I can see that the statements I was reacting to were in the context of that discussion. I read it as a more general claim.Indeed, but I don't know what this has to do with my position. I never claimed people make decisions based on careful reasoning. I certainly don't - I go by intuition a lot. I simply made comment on whether I would accept a belief in supernatural claims (let's say gods, ghosts, demons) based on anecdotes. Answer: no. — Tom Storm
I do. Obviously not all anecdotes. But I make decisions all the time that use anecdotes, often unconsciously, as evidence. I more or less have to. If I can check with scientific research and be pretty sure the research is not tainted by corporate funding, then I may well do that. I have other paradigmatic based criteria also. But there are all sorts of situations where I choose to consider anecdotes good evidence. I might wish I had great evidence, but it is good enough to sway me towards decision X, following pattern of behavior Y, giving Z a try and so on.I don't consider them good evidence — Tom Storm
For example: people lving near elephants and then some non-African visitors thought that elephants could communicate over long distances - one non-African actually could feel what later was discovered to be the method of communication. — Bylaw
Rogue waves is another example. Current fluid physics/oceanography/meteorology ruled out the possibility of rogue waves. It wasn't possible given what they knew or 'knew'. It didn't fit then current models. Later after changes in technology confirmed what was dismissed as faulty emotional judgments on witnesses, then scientists sought out to explain what was going on.
Sure, you can have terrible heuristics when dealing with anecdotes. Or you can have good ones. Anecdotes can come from people suffering psychotic breaks, from experts in their fields, from people you know, from combinations of these things, from people with clear motives, from people whose motives would go against them saying X was true, to anecdotes based on stories with constructions like 'it must have been X because Y' and that makes no sense to anecdotes where the same construction is used in way that makes sense.↪180 Proof Hundreds of folk say they saw Elvis alive after 1977. Apparently he must have faked his death and lives amongst us. He even showed up as an extra in Home Alone. :razz: — Tom Storm
Now you are using the word proof. Before it was evidence.UFO's seen in the sky as proof of aliens - No — Tom Storm
People seeing visions of god/s as evidence of God existing - No
People seeing a large monkey man as evidence of Bigfoot - No
People reporting their life turned around after they started believing in Allah as evidence of Allah - No
People seeing Elvis Presley at a filling station in Fresno as evidence that Elvis lives - No
People seeing a demon as evidence for Christianity - No
People claiming to have been abducted by aliens as evidence of aliens - No — Tom Storm
Do you mean presently-known laws of nature or known and unknown laws of nature. In the original post, Thor experiences something beyond the laws of nature his culture knows. Bylaw makes a similar point.Well, what do you think of my criterion for "proof" of the supernatural in my previous post just before yours, Art? — 180 Proof
Look at the original post. What was done to Thor could be done to his entire tribe, a wireless doorbell camera in each hut. And then there's the well-known scenario where someone knows a eclipse is about to occur, waves his hands, and the primitive tribe sees the sun go dark. A few minutes later, another wave of the hand restores the sun. In the mind of the tribe, the man has clearly demonstrated "supernatural" power.My point is that when enough anecdotal evidence piles up, it's OK to conclude something strange is going on. — RogueAI
We have better than anecdotal evidence for lightening; we have eye-witness testimony. I've even seen it myself. For centuries, lightening was thought to be supernatural. "A History of the Warfare of Science With Theology in Christendom" by Andrew D. White (you can find it online) has an account of how preachers condemned Ben Franklin's lightening rod as trying to frustrate the artillery of heaven. They couldn't explain it so they dubbed it "supernatural."There's no reason, in principle, why anecdotal evidence can't confirm a supernatural theory. — RogueAI
Imagine Thor is a primitive person who lives in a hut. Imagine hiding a wireless doorbell camera that has a speaker somewhere in Thor’s hut. Thor enters and hears a voice, “Thor. I am God. Fall on your knees.” Thor looks around, confused; he can’t believe his ears. “Thor. Stop looking around and fall on your knees.” Thor complies. Later, he swears to everyone that he had a supernatural experience, that God spoke to him. When we perfect 3D free-standing holograms, we could project an image for Thor. Now, Thor would swear he heard and saw God, too. — Art48
I think that to observe a change in nature which within the constraints of the 'laws of nature' could not be caused, even in principle, by any natural event, force, or agent implies that that causal "something" is inconsistent with – not constrained by – the 'laws of nature'. — 180 Proof
I almost agree. Since our Epistemology (knowledge) is entirely based on sensory perceptions, we can never know anything that is outside-of (or above) Nature. However, since Ontology (being) is derived from rational inference, we can follow a chain of reasoning back toward it's source, even back in time : as Astrologers did to conclude that the beginning of our space-time (world-being) was an ex nihilo emergence from an unknown source.Supernatural as a concept is intelligible. But declaring something supernatural seems, to repeat myself, presumptuous and foolish. — Art48
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