Originally Posted by Veoo
This is silly, if that is the case you can simply say all theories explaining something have evidence that it needs to be explained, meaning they are equally likely so its not a means of prove one is better then the other so it would not be the definition of of evidence which is as follows:
"the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid." -Google note card definition
How does the very problem that requires an answer provide that one specific theory is true or valid.
This is silly
I see why you could make this mistake though.
All theories that explain a phenomenon have that phenomena as evidence, but not all theories have equal amounts of evidence.
The existence of the universe would be a part of the body of facts in your definition. If the proposition is the existence of god, that could be seen as evidence for, equally there are other parts of the body of facts that could be seen as evidence against.
Originally Posted by cowmeat
A phenomenon without an explanation is in itself evidence for a theory explaining it.
I can say I have evidence for anything with your logic here as long as the contrary isn't proven. That would mean evidence is redundant and useless. Protip. evidence is not redundant
You would be correct! This is somewhere near what Im trying to get across, using Veoo's definition above - one part of the body of facts is not enough to draw a conclusion. One piece of evidence on its own may sometimes be useless as it could allow many conclusions to be drawn.
An analogy:
A murder victim, person 1, is found to have stab wounds.
This is a piece of evidence in the murder case, it suggests that someone stabbed person 1.
We cannot rule out any people as we have no more evidence at this point, equally we cannot convict anyone because we have insufficient evidence or from Veoo's definition "only one fraction of the body of facts". But it remains the case that it is still evidence
If we find another piece of evidence that person 2 is holding a bloody knife.
This is another piece of evidence.
Another piece of evidence is that the DNA of the blood matches person 1.
If my theory is that person 2 stabbed person 1, its easy to see in this analogy how when more pieces of evidence or "phenomena" fit the model, there is more evidence for the model and it is easy to accept. It would have been silly to accept this theory when we only had the first piece of evidence, even though it was evidence.
Smallbowl, you are the only one here misunderstanding what evidence means.
You also dont understand occams razor, you think it's some sort of a rule that actually applies to anything, it doesn't. If you think the universe works in a way that the simplest outcome is always chosen you are as dumb as you seem to be in your writing.
Occam's razer can be interpreted in 2 ways - 1. Simplest, 2. Least Assumptions.
The application changes if you pick the other 1 rather than 2. Occam's razor is commonly used to argue against Last Thursdayism and the Earth being created 6000 years ago.
If it was simplest, last thursdayism is a very simple explanation, but contains a lot of assumptions.
Second of all, you think a god is the simplest explanation? My fucking shit is that a stupid thing to say. A god creating everything is literally the most complex explanation possible.
Where did the god come from? How does it have powers to create the universe? How could it create something before anything was created? All the questions are as complex as any explanation. Your "BUT MAH OCCAMS RAZOR" spouting is the dumbest thing ive heard in a long time.
These questions are examples of assumptions that have to be made, however the point remains that there are not currently models with less or less extreme assumptions.
But hey, according to your logic. I can just as well say that leprechauns who like gay porn created the universe and then named the universe Michael. I have just as much evidence for that as you do for god creating it. Which is ONE.
You could say that and there would be 1 piece of evidence you could point to, to support your model. The existence of the universe.
However that on its own is not enough evidence for you to gain much support for your gay porn leprechaun theory.
Literally the dictionary definition of evidence. Now you can shut up with your nonsense:
noun
1.
that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof.
2.
something that makes plain or clear; an indication or sign:
His flushed look was visible evidence of his fever.
3.
Law. data presented to a court or jury in proof of the facts in issue and which may include the testimony of witnesses, records, documents, or objects.
Here this is an argument of semantics, because not only can your definition be interpreted in different ways, there is not but 1 definition of evidence and not but 1 dictionary. This could easily be where our disagreements stem from.
But I think my analogy above explains where Im coming from quite well and better than previously so I would like you to read that
Don't dm me pictures of bowls that you find attractive.
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