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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Science as Religion (other objections to Wingate's article)
Message-ID: <239@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Nov-84 11:47:17 EST
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.239
Posted: Mon Nov 19 11:47:17 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Nov-84 10:57:49 EST
References: <704@umcp-cs.UUCP> <209@cybvax0.UUCP> <770@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 47
Summary: 

In article <1112@umcp-cs.UUCP> mangoe@maryland.UUCP (Charley Wingate) writes:
>Occam's razor is only usable when you don't care that the explanation that
>it indicates is wrong, in the sense that the explanation produces the
>observations, but is not in fact what produced the original observations.
>In science this is not a problem, because we are only concerned with the
>predictive power of the explanation.  You have to be able to re-test the
>explanation.  I am hesitant to allow its use in history, because the
>explanation stands entirely in isolation and cannot be shown erroneous
>without introducing new data-- and there is not an infinite supply of new
>historical information.  With regard to the claims of christianity, it
>is quite obvious that selecting the "wrong" explanation is quite devastating.
>While claims that the gospels are lies and claims that the resurrection
>actually happened as stated may explain the beginnings of christianity as
>it is recorded, the truth of one versus the other produces quite different
>implications.  In this case, Occam's razor is less useful, because we do
>care whether or not the explanation is the same as the actuality, as well
>as caring that it explains the data.

If you don't know the "actuality" then how else will you decide what it most
likely was?  Appeal to vested interests seems to be your implication.

>You can only lump together if you assume that they all have the same
>"cause", i.e., that they can all be explained through the same process.
>This is O.K. in science, because we can always disprove this assumption
>with new observations.  We can't assume that with history because there's
>no way to go back and disprove the assumption without new data, which
>is decreasingly forthcoming.

Both history and theology recur in patterns.  New religions are always being
spawned, and history is always being made.  Part of any hypothesis is how well
it can classify (lump together) in predictive ways.  Machievelli's The Prince
for example.  That no two hypotheses may classify alike doesn't disqualify
any individual hypothesis.  So you can classify Biblical miracles as uniquely
true in your hypothesis, and I classify all miracles as probable lies.  That's
a perfectly appropriate part of hypothesizing.  My ideas about religion may
be analogous to Machiavelli's on princes.  (Pardon the pomposity :-) )

On the other hand, I can think of times when Occam's Razor is not appropriate.
It is not appropriate in cases of fraud, where because it is expected that
Occam's Razor (or similar) will be used, the information made available is
tailored to lead to a false conclusion.  That's the route normally used by
Christians (and other religions) to discredit logic of all sorts, by
postulating a devil or other source of disinformation.  Which leads us right
to Tim Marony's (sp?) moral arguments against the god of that sort of religion.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh