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From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sci,net.philosophy,net.misc
Subject: science and belief
Message-ID: <2980@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Jul-84 17:20:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.2980
Posted: Mon Jul 23 17:20:08 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jul-84 08:48:25 EDT
Lines: 38

<>
This was prompted by several recent postings on free will, mind and
brain, psi phenomena, Shirley MacLaine and other odds and ends.

I believe it was Carl Sagan who observed (in connection with the
existence of extraterrestrials) that "absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence."

Whenever someone declares a belief in flying saucers, pyramid power,
handwriting analysis, or the S A T, you can bet a righteous host
will respond with a cascade of prose pointing out all holes in the
argument bigger than a proton, and I'm right there cheering them on
... up to a point.

I quite agree that the evidence offered so far (offered where I can see
it, anyway) is pretty lousy for any of these things.  So I don't believe
in flying saucers or spooks or bermuda shorts.  Leprechauns, well...
I further believe in the NON-existence of some things.  I don't believe
that vampires are a large and active segment of the population, because
if that were true we would expect to see some evidence (bat craps, I
suppose).  I disbelieve in ROUTINE psi phenomena because if they
were going on all around me I think I'd notice, and anyway someone would
have come up with solid demonstrations by now, right?

But I think a few posters have been carelessly implying that if there
is no evidence for the existence of something, that something does not
exist.

Sometimes people ask me if I believe in life on other planets.  I tell
them I don't know.  I certainly would like to think it is possible
for such life to exist - perhaps even probable.  But I don't know either
way.  I'm probably not as consistent and sensible on this as I'd
like to think, but it strikes me as good policy.

D Gary Grady
Duke University Computation Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-4146
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