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I agree that the described debating tactic exists (thank you for sharing the explanation), what I find most interesting is the bailey example given isn't that c

I agree that the described debating tactic exists (thank you for sharing the explanation), what I find most interesting is the bailey example given isn't that controversial ("cultural knowledge is just as valid as scientific knowledge"). I suppose it depends on the context in which it was used, but I can think of plenty of examples where such a statement would be banal.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
The question is not whether there is just as valid cultural knowledge, but whether culture as a source of knowledge is just as valid as science, which it is not. If cultural knowledge happens to align with sciencific knowledge, then it is valid as well, but what establishes validity is science/the scientific method, not culture.
- mjburgess 9y ago
  > which it is not Yes, so you disagree with the prior commenter. You think science is the "validator" of knowledge. "I know that I am in pain" is not validated by science, and science has no role even to play in "validating" it. "I know that science works" is not validated by science and science has no role in validating it. etc. It would seem there are probably knowledge claims which belong in the domain of culture that are likewise orthogonal to science ("I know that we liked the new Star Wars").
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    > Yes, so you disagree with the prior commenter. Possibly. > You think science is the "validator" of knowledge. Where did you get that from? > "I know that I am in pain" is not validated by science, and science has no role even to play in "validating" it. What is your justification for considering that an instance of cultural knowledge? > "I know that science works" is not validated by science and science has no role in validating it. So, how do you know that science works? Or are you saying that it doesn't work or that you don't know whether it works? > It would seem there are probably knowledge claims which belong in the domain of culture that are likewise orthogonal to science It would seem that something seeming to you to be the case is not a particularly convincing argument. > ("I know that we liked the new Star Wars"). Are you saying this claim is not derived from empirical observation of "we" and/or not accessible to falsification (like, you think it is impossible to ask a representative sample of "we" whether they like Star Wars)? If that is what you mean, how do you know it, then? If that is not what you mean, how is that application of the scientific method orthogonal to science?
    - mjburgess 9y ago
      > but what establishes validity is science/the scientific method My examples were to show that there are knowledge claims where this fails. > seeming to you to be the case That isn't my argument. My argument is inductive over the prior examples.
      - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
        > My examples were to show that there are knowledge claims where this fails. Except that your example was just an equivocation of no substantial relevance to the problem at hand that also doesn't really hold? First of all, you should be well aware that we were talking about knowledge about external reality, so it's simply irrelevant that you can define knowledge to encompass awareness of individual personal experiences ... yes, you can, but that wasn't the topic of the discussion, and isn't contested by anyone, and thus doesn't contribute anything to the discussion. Secondly, I hope very much that you were not implying that you can know that what you experience as the cause of pain is in fact the cause, because that is contradicted by phantom pain, which requires scientific inquiry to (a) know about in general and (b) distinguish from pain caused by what you experience it to be caused by in the specific instance. Which is also the only way we know pain is even a common thing amongst people, as well as the reason we know what causes pain in many instances. And then, well, really, to an extent we can actually observe both causes for pain and whether someone is experiencing pain without the need to rely on self-reports, so the gap between what is purely subjective about the experience of pain and what can be observed about it scientifically is not as massive as you seem to suggest.
        mjburgess 9y ago
        So, if you restrict the domain of inquiry to the things that science best studies (causes and their origins) then science is the best to study it. The point was that there are other domains.
        zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
        > So, if you restrict the domain of inquiry to the things that science best studies (causes and their origins) then science is the best to study it. I didn't restrict anything, I just pointed out that your analogy is irrelevant to the topic at hand. The topic of the discussion was what methods can be used to reliably obtain knowledge about the external world, and being aware of individual personal experience just isn't. > The point was that there are other domains. OK, so what other domains of knowledge about the external world are there?
  - zyx321 9y ago
    Myth and superstition are a huge part of every culture. Cultural knowledge includes ideas such as "sex with a virgin cures AIDS" or "back pain is the result of a black magic curse (Hexenschuss)" which are decidedly less valid than scientific knowledge. EDIT:Oh, and remember to always be polite during this debate. Everyone Knows you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar...
- ZenoArrow 9y ago
  > "The question is not whether there is just as valid cultural knowledge, but whether culture as a source of knowledge is just as valid as science, which it is not." Science only truly works in when the properties being explored can be accurately quantified. There are plenty of experiences and occurrences which cannot be accurately quantified. There is a common misconception amongst scientifically-minded people that science can explain everything just because it can explain a wide range of events, from the big bang to the splitting of an atom. The truth is there are certain parts of our experience that make no sense to put a number on, and science will never excel in those spheres.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    > Science only truly works in when the properties being explored can be accurately quantified. What about the scientific method makes it so that this supposedly is the case? > There are plenty of experiences and occurrences which cannot be accurately quantified. Mind giving an example (for which you also think the scientific method is not applicable)? > There is a common misconception amongst scientifically-minded people that science can explain everything just because it can explain a wide range of events I doubt that that is a very wide-spread misconception among scientifically minded people, for the simple reason that a very central aspect of science is to say "I don't know" if ... well, if you don't know. That directly contradicts the supposed belief that "science can explain everything", as saying "I don't know" implies "I don't think science can explain this, at least not yet". If anything, it seems to me like that is a wide-spread misconception among not so scientifically minded people about what scientifically minded people think. However, the mere fact that science can not explain something does not mean that anything else can, and so far nothing has been demonstrated that could explain anything that science can't. > The truth is there are certain parts of our experience that make no sense to put a number on, and science will never excel in those spheres. What does putting numbers on things have to do with any of this?
    - mjburgess 9y ago
      > and so far nothing has been demonstrated that could explain anything that science can't. Science hasn't explained how science works, nor can it. Every precondition of science (causality, mathematics, etc.) goes unexplained by science.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago

The question is not whether there is just as valid cultural knowledge, but whether culture as a source of knowledge is just as valid as science, which it is not. If cultural knowledge happens to align with sciencific knowledge, then it is valid as well, but what establishes validity is science/the scientific method, not culture.

mjburgess 9y ago
> which it is not Yes, so you disagree with the prior commenter. You think science is the "validator" of knowledge. "I know that I am in pain" is not validated by science, and science has no role even to play in "validating" it. "I know that science works" is not validated by science and science has no role in validating it. etc. It would seem there are probably knowledge claims which belong in the domain of culture that are likewise orthogonal to science ("I know that we liked the new Star Wars").
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  > Yes, so you disagree with the prior commenter. Possibly. > You think science is the "validator" of knowledge. Where did you get that from? > "I know that I am in pain" is not validated by science, and science has no role even to play in "validating" it. What is your justification for considering that an instance of cultural knowledge? > "I know that science works" is not validated by science and science has no role in validating it. So, how do you know that science works? Or are you saying that it doesn't work or that you don't know whether it works? > It would seem there are probably knowledge claims which belong in the domain of culture that are likewise orthogonal to science It would seem that something seeming to you to be the case is not a particularly convincing argument. > ("I know that we liked the new Star Wars"). Are you saying this claim is not derived from empirical observation of "we" and/or not accessible to falsification (like, you think it is impossible to ask a representative sample of "we" whether they like Star Wars)? If that is what you mean, how do you know it, then? If that is not what you mean, how is that application of the scientific method orthogonal to science?
  - mjburgess 9y ago
    > but what establishes validity is science/the scientific method My examples were to show that there are knowledge claims where this fails. > seeming to you to be the case That isn't my argument. My argument is inductive over the prior examples.
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
      > My examples were to show that there are knowledge claims where this fails. Except that your example was just an equivocation of no substantial relevance to the problem at hand that also doesn't really hold? First of all, you should be well aware that we were talking about knowledge about external reality, so it's simply irrelevant that you can define knowledge to encompass awareness of individual personal experiences ... yes, you can, but that wasn't the topic of the discussion, and isn't contested by anyone, and thus doesn't contribute anything to the discussion. Secondly, I hope very much that you were not implying that you can know that what you experience as the cause of pain is in fact the cause, because that is contradicted by phantom pain, which requires scientific inquiry to (a) know about in general and (b) distinguish from pain caused by what you experience it to be caused by in the specific instance. Which is also the only way we know pain is even a common thing amongst people, as well as the reason we know what causes pain in many instances. And then, well, really, to an extent we can actually observe both causes for pain and whether someone is experiencing pain without the need to rely on self-reports, so the gap between what is purely subjective about the experience of pain and what can be observed about it scientifically is not as massive as you seem to suggest.
      - mjburgess 9y ago
        So, if you restrict the domain of inquiry to the things that science best studies (causes and their origins) then science is the best to study it. The point was that there are other domains.
        zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
        > So, if you restrict the domain of inquiry to the things that science best studies (causes and their origins) then science is the best to study it. I didn't restrict anything, I just pointed out that your analogy is irrelevant to the topic at hand. The topic of the discussion was what methods can be used to reliably obtain knowledge about the external world, and being aware of individual personal experience just isn't. > The point was that there are other domains. OK, so what other domains of knowledge about the external world are there?
- zyx321 9y ago
  Myth and superstition are a huge part of every culture. Cultural knowledge includes ideas such as "sex with a virgin cures AIDS" or "back pain is the result of a black magic curse (Hexenschuss)" which are decidedly less valid than scientific knowledge. EDIT:Oh, and remember to always be polite during this debate. Everyone Knows you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar...
ZenoArrow 9y ago
> "The question is not whether there is just as valid cultural knowledge, but whether culture as a source of knowledge is just as valid as science, which it is not." Science only truly works in when the properties being explored can be accurately quantified. There are plenty of experiences and occurrences which cannot be accurately quantified. There is a common misconception amongst scientifically-minded people that science can explain everything just because it can explain a wide range of events, from the big bang to the splitting of an atom. The truth is there are certain parts of our experience that make no sense to put a number on, and science will never excel in those spheres.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  > Science only truly works in when the properties being explored can be accurately quantified. What about the scientific method makes it so that this supposedly is the case? > There are plenty of experiences and occurrences which cannot be accurately quantified. Mind giving an example (for which you also think the scientific method is not applicable)? > There is a common misconception amongst scientifically-minded people that science can explain everything just because it can explain a wide range of events I doubt that that is a very wide-spread misconception among scientifically minded people, for the simple reason that a very central aspect of science is to say "I don't know" if ... well, if you don't know. That directly contradicts the supposed belief that "science can explain everything", as saying "I don't know" implies "I don't think science can explain this, at least not yet". If anything, it seems to me like that is a wide-spread misconception among not so scientifically minded people about what scientifically minded people think. However, the mere fact that science can not explain something does not mean that anything else can, and so far nothing has been demonstrated that could explain anything that science can't. > The truth is there are certain parts of our experience that make no sense to put a number on, and science will never excel in those spheres. What does putting numbers on things have to do with any of this?
  - mjburgess 9y ago
    > and so far nothing has been demonstrated that could explain anything that science can't. Science hasn't explained how science works, nor can it. Every precondition of science (causality, mathematics, etc.) goes unexplained by science.