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Imagine that you are living in 15th century England. Christianity is followed by a large group of experts and scientists (and everyone else as well.) Do you t
by jibiki 17y ago
Imagine that you are living in 15th century England. Christianity is followed by a large group of experts and scientists (and everyone else as well.) Do you then conclude that atheism is just random lunacy? (If you happen to be Christian, you can do this thought experiment somewhere else--15th century Persia, for instance.)
The consensus theory of truth is a good starting point, but it is not sufficient.
- cousin_it 17y agoAgree completely. This idea was eloquently expressed by yosefk: Q: All those C++ users and overlords can't be wrong, can they? Why should I believe you? A: This sort of thinking will get you in trouble, since it's recursive and it has no termination condition. Very large groups of people with the usual subset of those having impressive credentials are known to have been wrong for very long periods of time (the flat Earth issue comes to mind; these people weren't stupid, mind you, "wrong" and "stupid" is not the same thing). Supposing you are in a group of people who are wrong right now, how do you plan to find it out using your kind of thinking?
- wlievens 17y agoThat's a completely different case. When the dissenting opinion is held by scientist, I think it has some value. When it's held by people who refuse to even consider applying the scientific method (creationists, for instance), you should just outright ignore them.