MiracleQuest Continues: On Post Hoc Reasoning & The Re-Captitated Man
Posted in Atheism, Blogosphere, Logic, MiracleQuest, Religion, Responses, Skepticism, Thinking Critically on | 8 minutes | 26 Comments →
So it appears Deacon Duncan has accused me of post hoc reasoning regarding an objection I made to his elaboration on my re-capitation example. I'd like to take a moment to discuss why I feel his complaints are based on an overly-charitable interpretation of my objection, and I'm curious to hear what you think. The linked post is part of a lengthy ongoing discussion, so a little backstory might be helpful.
For the past month or so at EvangelicalRealism, we've been discussing the amount of credibility we can reasonably assign to miracle stories. Now, everyone has different definitions of a miracle and different thresholds of skepticism through which they filter observed events. Phenomena like the Marian apparitions at Zeitoun are obviously sufficient to convince some people, yet others remain skeptical. So how might we define a miracle objectively, in a manner that anyone can apply to any observed event?
I entered the discussion attempting to establish a rigorous set of criteria one could apply to determine whether or not any event might be considered a miracle. That didn't work out very well, so in further attempts to determine the 'miracle switch' in everybody's brains, I introduced the re-capitated man as a hypothetical example, asking skeptics how they would parse such an event. That is, if we observed a man get decapitated, then an hour later we observe the man's head re-attach after which he goes into the bar for a drink, would we have grounds to say something "miraculous" had occurred?
To this end, commenter jim said, "…a head rolling itself over to the body, lining itself up at the sever point, then spontaneously welding itself back into place could only be naturalistically reconciled by some extreme apologetical hoop jumping."
The aforementioned scenario would certainly confront philosophical naturalism head-on, but in a strictly scientific context remains virtually useless, if nothing else mainly because of its anecdotal nature and ambiguity. One sample is rarely sufficient in science, and we have no discernible way of verifying who or what actually triggered the re-capitation. Simply put, there are too many confounders, so DD upped the ante with the introduction of a praying monk:
Let’s say that during the hour the victim was decapitated, some saffron-robed monk wanders by and begins to pray, “Oh great Buddha, have mercy on this poor soul and heal him of his decapitation by your divine grace.” The rest of the story remains the same: after an hour, the head reattaches and the man walks away unharmed. Would this be evidence that Buddha is really God? I think a lot of Buddhists would be fairly surprised if that were the case. But notice, the actual evidence of the miracle itself is no more specific than it ever was. The facts pertaining to the actual “recapitation” are exactly what they were before. (bold mine)
Now first let me be clear: I've already conceded the difficulties in saying anything conclusively without the praying monk. However, a re-capitation that occurred directly after a monk's prayerful request is certainly a piece of evidence we should examine in determining whether or not Buddha was God. But again, this single instance would not be any sort of conclusive proof we could establish as we do in science. With or without the praying monk, we simply do not have sufficient evidence or samples to reliably attribute the cause of this phenomena to Buddha. Even if we did, whether or not Buddha is really God is another matter entirely. The case is anecdotal, and we suffer from potentially irrecoverable confounders. So in that sense, I agree with DD.
However, where I disagree with DD is that the facts pertaining to the actual re-capitation are exactly the same with or without the monk. This is easily demonstrable as false.
Let's call the first re-capitation without the praying monk A, and the one with the praying monk B. In A, we had 1) observer and 2) victim, and the re-capitation occurred sans anything that could be reasonably considered a potential catalyst. In B, again we had both 1) observer and 2) victim, but also 3) a potential catalyst. Further, B occurred directly after an event that was not present in A, hence on two accounts we have more raw data to parse in B. Again, neither A nor B are proof that Buddha is really God, but clearly, the facts are different in A and B, right?
So I said,
The facts are not exactly the same as before. In the first hypothetical scenario, we had no Buddhist praying, hence no reasonable grounds to connect the incident to a Buddhist prayer. In the second example, we have stronger evidence – the event occurred after a Buddhist prayer – providing us with a verifiable connection that strengthens preliminary justification for the possibility that Buddha performed this particular miracle.
And here's what DD had to say, which finally brings us to the point of today's post:
Our friend cl has fallen into the fallacy known as post hoc, ergo propter hoc. “After this, therefore because of this” is an age-old tendency in human thinking that deceives a lot of people because it resembles scientific thinking in some respects. But it is still a fallacy nevertheless.
Let’s change the story again: this time, instead of a Buddhist monk praying, it’s a hippie eating a veggieburger. As soon as the hippie swallows the last bite of the burger, the head reattaches itself. Do we now have reasonable grounds for concluding that the act of eating a veggieburger has hitherto unsuspected miraculous powers? I really don’t think even cl would draw that conclusion. And yet it’s the same thing: we’re saying A happens, and then B happens, and therefore A must have caused B. In the first case, “A” is a Buddhist monk praying; in the second, it’s a hippie eating a veggieburger.
What tends to fool us is a malfunction of our psychological ability to recognize significance. When the Buddhist monk prays for the decapitation victim to be healed, we understand the meaning of what he is asking for. When the head “re-capitates,” we associate the meaning of the prayer with the description of the amazing event, and infer a cause and effect relationship that isn’t necessarily there.
Ahem. A few problems here:
1) (*This point has been recanted; see correction here) The veggieburger comparison is nowhere near the same as the praying monk comparison. The praying monk consciously attempts to influence the re-capitation, whereas the person eating the veggieburger does not. Some person eating a veggieburger is completely arbitrary (unless of course they pray over the veggieburger and ask for God to re-capitate the man or something of that nature, then we have grounds to consider the person eating their veggieburger a potential catalyst). So there is legitimate reason for further inquiry in the former, but not as much so the latter, and the two are clearly not categorically interchangeable. Anyone?
2) In the case of B, I say we have to go with Occam's razor and assume the minimum of a potential connection is more reasonable than the psychological self-trickery DD suggests. Again, remember I've conceded neither A nor B are conclusive proof that Buddha is really God, just nudged a bit further from the NULL position in that direction. However, if someone prays over a man and his head re-attaches and the guy walks into the bar for a drink, is it that much of a stretch to posit a potential causal relationship?
3) Let's move on to the main question of the post here: Did I commit post hoc reasoning? First, what does DD mean specifically by post hoc reasoning? He uses the term analogously to post hoc ergo propter hoc, or "after this, therefore because of this." Did I say that since the re-capitation occurred after the prayer, that it necessarily occurred because of the prayer? No.
Reread my original words cited above. I have not once said we can conclude such in either A or B. In A we just have some apparently random miraculous healing, and in B we have something that might possibly be legitimate and warrants further consideration. Let's return to my original words: "In the second example (B), we have stronger evidence – the event occurred after a Buddhist prayer – providing us with a verifiable connection that strengthens preliminary justification for the possibility that Buddha performed this particular miracle. (paren. added)"
So my position was not, "After this, therefore because of this." My position could be better summarized as, "After this, perhaps because of this?" Note the difference in punctuation as well. To this effect, I later stated that the monk's credibility increases to the degree he can repeat his abilities. And that's why I feel DD's charge of post hoc reasoning stems from an overly-charitable interpretation of my objection.
What do you think? If you don't mind I'd like to ask three separate questions of you: Are the facts of both A and B exactly the same? Is the veggieburger example the same as the praying monk example? Is it post hoc reasoning to assume a potential connection when a monk prays for a specific breach of natural law that occurs?
Arthur
says...“The veggieburger comparison is nowhere near the same as the praying monk comparison. The praying monk consciously attempts to influence the re-capitation, whereas the person eating the veggieburger does not.”
Well, you left out the Deacon’s transitional scenario—
“Let’s try another variation: this time, the veggieburger-eating hippie shows up again, and says, ‘Dudes, chill, it’s no big deal. As soon as I finish this veggieburger, that guy is going to come back to life.’ He finishes his burger as before, and the miracle happens again.”
—where he keeps the ludicrous hippie fella, but adds a “verbal connection” to the event. This is the important scenario for you, since it appears to be the verbal connection that draws you to conclude the presence of a possible causal connection.
You have, in the past, given the impression of such attachment to logical rigor that it’s a little disorienting to see you looking for wiggle room inside a textbook fallacy.
Lifeguard
says...Hola, Cl.
1) “Are the facts of both A and B exactly the same?”
It sounds to me like the disagreement over whether or not the facts are the same has more to do with opposing definitions of the word “miracle” than it does with a distinction between the facts themselves (i.e., this is an issue about facts relevant to defining miracles). If you define a miracle purely in terms of the event itself as observed and without consideration to whom or what you attribute the miracle, then the “facts” (read “relevant facts”) are the same. If, however, you require that something can be considered a miracle if and only if there is a reasonable and observable basis for attributing the event to a supernatural cause consciously brought about by prayerful intercession, then the facts are different. I tend to favor the former over the latter, because I think the entire discussion about miracles has to do with whether or not the nature of the event in and of itself is such that it suggests a supernatural cause to the reasonable exclusion of naturalistic or materialistic explanations.
2) “Is the veggieburger example the same as the praying monk example?”
I think this questions actually highlights my point that we are dealing with two different questions here: (a) how do we define miracles, and/or (b) assuming miracles happen, what role can humans play in bringing them about. But, again, I don’t think (b) is necessarily relevant to (a), because in either case a bona fide miracle would suggest a supernatural cause regardless of whether it resulted from prayer or God acting sua sponte.
3) “Is it post hoc reasoning to assume a potential connection when a monk prays for a specific breach of natural law that occurs?”
I don’t think you’re engaging in post hoc reasoning or otherwise looking for wiggle room here.
cl
says...So I was in fact *wrong* in 1) above.
Arthur,
Missing the transitional scenario was an honest oversight which I’m glad you caught, and presuming the “textbook fallacy” you accuse me of is also post hoc reasoning, the onus is on you to prove that I’ve said “After this, therefore because of this” regarding B.
Lifeguard,
I agree with your concerns over definitions of the word miracle and took many lashes from certain commenters at DD’s blog for raising the same point. Thanks for offering a definition of your own, too. I think I’m going to create a post to collect pertinent miracle definitions found around the internet, in hopes of developing some sort of multi-tiered criteria. Maybe you could cut and paste your definition in that thread?
Thanks again.
pboyfloyd
says...Hi Lifeguard. I’m using “Reply” because it seems to be the only way that I can post a comment on cl’s blog.
cl, I’m missing the ‘Post’ and ‘Preview’ tabs necessary to send you a comment unless I am ‘reply’ing to a specific comment.
I was going to say that, in your thought experiment, you seem to be concentrating on getting this ‘nudge’ towards who gets credit.
I’m not sure where you can go from there but shouldn’t you be going in the direction more, “If the severed head scenario is definitely a miracle, then how about a story of a ‘severed head’ miracle? How about a story told by someone, say 70 years after the alleged miracle?
That kind of thing.
cl
says...Hi pboyfloyd. Sorry about the technical difficulties, and I have my own set of complaints about TypePad blogs. I seem to have the tabs at all times, but I’ve noticed that when I cut and paste a comment into the window and hit post, it glitches out and I have to do it twice. I will forward them your comment and one day I’ll probably have to just build a custom blog because all the pre-packaged software seems to suffer from some quirky, clunky or otherwise non-intuitive feature. How’s your experience with Blogger? Isn’t that what you use?
Can you elaborate some more perhaps? I honestly didn’t mean to convey that idea.
To me that seems like the direction one might go if they were trying to prove the God of the Bible, and that’s not the direction I’m going in. I’m questioning whether a group of atheists and non-atheists can agree on definitions and criteria that could provide a preliminary test of exclusion for miracle claims.
pboyfloyd
says...Okay cl, you said that if a priest was known to have been praying while the head was severed, the priest is now part of the story and ought to be considered as ‘some kind of’ evidence that he perhaps caused it, giving us the ‘nudge’ off the NULL position.
Well, in the thought experiment, the severed head reattaching is ‘the miracle’ and your down to debating ‘who’ is responsible, making the “miracle” itself a moot point.
cl
says...How does conjecturing over who might be responsible make the miracle itself a moot point?
pboyfloyd
says...Well, the ‘miracle’ itself is a moot point because it is being taken for granted no matter if you decide that a priest had any influence or not.
Am I not using the term technically correctly then?
I think that your thought experiment wondered away from a defining a miracle to creator(or invoker)-of-miracle much like defining the universe as created or designed forces the question of who created or designed the universe.
Or much like the ‘Fine-tuned’ universe calls for a fine-tuner.
But isn’t that just anthropomorphization by proxy?
Arthur
says...Re the charge of post hoc reasoning…
“My position could be better summarized as, ‘After this, perhaps because of this?'”
What does the word “perhaps” contribute to truth-preservation? What does the question mark contribute? This statement sounds less certain than the original (“after this, therefore because of this”); but what do we gain by simply attaching expressions of doubt to an invalid inference?
“…if someone prays over a man and his head re-attaches and the guy walks into the bar for a drink, is it that much of a stretch to posit a potential causal relationship?”
Taking “posit” to mean “assume the existence of,” yes; it’s a logically unwarranted stretch.
A tentative statement, like “we have something that might possibly be legitimate and warrants further consideration,” is no less a conclusion for having qualifiers attached to it. You are still presenting an argument; given the premises, how valid is the conclusion?
The whole point of having rules of inference is to certify an argument as truth-preserving. It doesn’t matter to a rule of inference whether or not a conclusion might be true. To be truth-preserving means that an argument’s conclusion is exactly as sound as its premises are—no truth is lost in transit.
A fallacy is just an inference which looks superficially convincing but which fails to guarantee that its conclusion is as sound as its premises. To observe a temporal relationship and conclude that it was a causal relationship (post hoc reasoning), is to commit a logical fallacy—even though you could be right—because there is no way to guarantee the conclusion without additional data. Note that ignoring the order of events doesn’t make the error go away; it just makes it cum hoc reasoning instead of post hoc.
Contextual details don’t make the error go away either. If, as in the recapitation story, A had the appearance of intent to cause B, but there is still no observable causal connection between A and B, this just means that (precisely because it appears so intuitively obvious) one must take particular care not to jump to the conclusion that a causal connection was observed. That conclusion is still logically unfounded in the absence of additional data. This is the entire point of Deacon’s formulation of the recapitation thought experiment.
(And “in the area of apologetics and our reasons for believing,” to quote our mutual friend, unfounded conclusions are all the more tempting; so all the more care must be taken to avoid them. Or, to quote our mutual Wikipedia, “many superstitious beliefs and magical thinking arise from this fallacy.”)
Now, in the presence of additional data, you and Deacon seem to be on the same page. As you say, “the monk’s credibility increases to the degree he can repeat his abilities,” and as he says, “now we’re starting to talk about some solid empirical data that can be used as the basis for drawing reliable inferences…. We have an actual, real-world, material phenomenon to study.”
This, of course, is inductive reasoning, which is a different sort of thing, depending for its power on the amount of relevant data that can be found. If there’s sufficient data to make an inductive case, then we’ve moved beyond the scope of both the recapitation story and the requirements for deductive validity.
cl
says...pboyfloyd,
Your question seems to underscore the need for precise definitions of a miracle that jim and others ridiculed me about in the original thread, which is interesting. Still, I don’t see what you mean or what you’re asking of me when you say, “…the ‘miracle’ itself is a moot point because it is being taken for granted no matter if you decide that a priest had any influence or not.” The point of the re-capitation example was to find something a skeptical atheist would concede as miraculous. All we’ve been able to agree on is that we can establish when something unexplainable has happened and to me, that’s the moot point. Some people feel any and all ascription of causality is superstition, others feel ascription of coincidence or natural cause to be equally fallacious.
B does not necessarily entail Consciousness, and the comparison to the Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) fails because the conclusion of design in FTA is made sans observation of a potential catalyst, which we have in B.
But the idea you intended to convey seems correct. In science, we can’t just say, “It looks like this, must be this!”
Arthur,
Curiously, you originally faulted me for assuming the inference was valid, but here you note my “expressions of doubt.” If I am expressing doubt, how can I be making any conclusion or argument such that you can charge me with post hoc reasoning? If Scientist cl were to observe B, Scientist cl would say, “Whoa, that doesn’t happen everyday, maybe there’s something going on here. Let’s take a closer look at this.” Such is not beyond the bounds of logic or reason.
We gain a cautious and rational skepticism that allows the scientific method to proceed, and ironically, you simply presuppose the inference is invalid. Do you have data I’m not privy to?
Absolutely, and that’s why I highlighted the need for any conclusion to be supported by additional data in my original comments, so why did you include that note? Again, I’ve not concluded the temporal relationship was in fact a causal relationship; but I have observed a series of events congruent with a causal relationship that suggest further inquiry. Per Hyman’s Categorical Imperative, before proceeding with our investigation we must be sure there is indeed a phenomenon to investigate, and although insufficient to support any firm conclusions, even one observation of a monk praying over a de-capitation subject whose head re-attaches is worth investigation. Again, any conclusion at this stage would be premature, because this series of events is also congruent with other interpretations, which is why I added the bits about repetition, the necessary elimination of confounders, etc. Although not every temporal relationship represents a causal relationship, all causal relationships are temporally related, so a potential causal relationship is a reasonable preliminary assumption when breach of nature X happens directly after somebody specifically says, “Let breach of nature X happen.”
Was our friend Isaac committing the logical fallacy of post hoc reasoning upon his initial proffering of a potential causal relationship between the then-undiscovered force of gravity and falling objects? Although jumping to conclusions should certainly be safeguarded against in all considerations, a preliminary observation that leads to further questions is not the same as an offered conclusion.
Apparently you really believe that noting a potential causal relationship between a praying monk and a re-capitated man is beyond the bounds of reason, and I think that’s the source of our disagreement. If so, I’m okay with that.
Arthur
says...“If I am expressing doubt, how can I be making any conclusion or argument such that you can charge me with post hoc reasoning?”
Do you wish to make an inference or don’t you? You reformulated the textbook post hoc inference to include an expression of doubt, but this doesn’t somehow render the inference valid. You say “we gain a cautious and rational skepticism that allows the scientific method to proceed,” but simply expressing doubt in your own inference doesn’t advance anything. The only way to proceed is to get more information.
“…I have observed a series of events congruent with a causal relationship that suggest further inquiry.”
“…even one observation of a monk praying over a de-capitation subject whose head re-attaches is worth investigation.”
If, in these passages, what you mean is “we do not yet have enough information to conclude a causal relationship, we should see if we can find some more” then you and I (and Deacon, even) appear to agree. Note, however, the difficulties Deacon mentions specific to making predictions
based on what we know about the Buddha.
“Although jumping to conclusions should certainly be safeguarded against in all considerations, a preliminary observation that leads to further questions is not the same as an offered conclusion.”
Here we agree completely. But then why claim to be able to infer (or posit, or note, or etc) a causal relationship based on a temporal one? You seem to want very badly to be able to “leave the null position” before any additional data has been found. But that would be an unwarranted leap.
As long as I’m talking, how do you make your long quotes little and indented like that? Is that a HTML thing?
cl
says...Arthur,
The textbook post hoc inference is “A before B, therefore B because of A.” I don’t wish to make that inference, nor do I wish to deny that inference; I wish to state that I’ve observed an event that is congruent with that inference.
Yes, it does. It advances the idea that the matter is not settled and cannot be settled from a single sample. Such is scientific fact, not equivocation.
Yes, that’s two times now you’ve reminded me of a point I emphasized in my original comment. Why?
Why do you think I wrote this post? In the sense that the re-capitation doesn’t conclusively prove a causal relationship, we do all agree. That’s why I was taken aback to hear DD’s post hoc reasoning charge. I think I’ve successfully rebutted it, and Lifeguard seemed to agree. I’m satisfied.
I’m not saying we can do that all the time. That was addressed in my last comment. Although all causal relationships are temporal, not all temporal relationships entail causality.
The HTML trick with the indented text is called blockquotes. Say you wanted to indent this paragraph. You would simply add an opening blockquote tag to the beginning of the paragraph, and a closing blockquote tag at the end of the paragraph. It would look like this, (blockquote)paragraph(/blockquote), only instead of left and right parentheses you would use left and right angled brackets like you do for italicized words.
Arthur
says...This is really very simple. I regret my part in making it seem long and complicated.
Other than the self-evident correlation, deductive logic does not endorse any connection between the prayer and the recapitation. The fact that the one might have caused the other is trivial, and irrelevant to the rules of inference.
It seems obvious that you wish to claim that some additional connection is evident. It seems equally obvious that you know perfectly well there is no deductive warrant for such a claim, and therefore you’ve modified it by, basically, adding in a bunch of “maybe.” In other words, you’re looking for wiggle room.
A string of qualifiers of any length will not change the claim’s post hoc nature, and you know this as well as Deacon does.
cl
says...Arthur,
At what point is one justified in firmly concluding that one event caused another?
Arthur
says...Arthur
says...Arthur
says...My first block quote, and I screwed it up.
cl
says...Arthur,
So when that first apple hit Newton on the head, and the scientist supposed there might be a connection between some intangible force of nature and falling objects, was that post hoc reasoning?
Arthur
says...Do you suppose that Newton suffered from a shortage of data on falling objects?
Why Newton? Do you suppose his success was due to a disdain for classical rules of inference?
Why are you comparing a deductive thought experiment to a subject we understand only through inductive inference?
cl
says...Arthur,
No, I don’t.
Hey, good question: How did gravity become a subject we understand only through inductive reasoning?
Arthur
says...Do you suppose that Newton suffered from a shortage of data on falling objects?
Why Newton?
Why are you comparing a deductive thought experiment to a subject we understand only through inductive inference?
cl
says...Arthur,
There is no particular reason I chose Newton over any other scientist. Would you actually answer the question if I rephrased it using another scientist as an example?
Your still charging me with post hoc reasoning, the burden of proof is on you, hence, my two questions:
1) When that first apple hit Newton on the head, and the scientist supposed there might be a connection between some intangible force of nature and falling objects, was that post hoc reasoning?
2) How did gravity become a subject we understand only through inductive reasoning?
Arthur
says...1) No, it isn’t post hoc reasoning to “suppose there might be a connection” between things. It is post hoc reasoning to conclude such a connection between things; and it is deliberately vague and slippery to try and sneak between the two by saying “we have stronger evidence… providing us with a verifiable connection that strengthens preliminary justification for the possibility” of something. It is trading on an equivocation. It’s a whole mess of maybe.
2) Once you have a principle like the inverse square law, you can use it deductively; but such a principle is arrived at through inductive inference. Newton did not suffer from a shortage of data on falling objects. He didn’t even suffer from a shortage of other people attempting to address the same phenomenon. The leap from parabolas on earth to ellipses in space may have been an imaginative one, but it was based on an awful lot of data about both. The inverse square law was discovered by studying the data.
cl
says...Exactly. That’s been my understanding of post hoc reasoning the whole time. For example, “The aforementioned scenario would certainly confront philosophical naturalism head-on, but in a strictly scientific context remains virtually useless, if nothing else mainly because of its anecdotal nature and ambiguity. One sample is rarely sufficient in science, and we have no discernible way of verifying who or what actually triggered the re-capitation. Simply put, there are too many confounders,”
and,
“Now first let me be clear: I’ve already conceded the difficulties in saying anything conclusively without the praying monk. However, a re-capitation that occurred directly after a monk’s prayerful request is certainly a piece of evidence we should examine in determining whether or not Buddha was God. But again, this single instance would not be any sort of conclusive proof we could establish as we do in science.”
What in any of that is vague or slippery? Note: verifiable connection, not verified.
And although I agree with your 2), I wasn’t insinuating Newton had insufficient data about falling objects. There simply had to have been an “initial moment” where Newton first pondered the connection we now call gravity. In that moment, was his reasoning post hoc?
Let’s just admit DD might have jumped the gun and get back to the FSM discussion.
cl
says...Exactly. That’s been my understanding of post hoc reasoning the whole time. For example, “The aforementioned scenario would certainly confront philosophical naturalism head-on, but in a strictly scientific context remains virtually useless, if nothing else mainly because of its anecdotal nature and ambiguity. One sample is rarely sufficient in science, and we have no discernible way of verifying who or what actually triggered the re-capitation. Simply put, there are too many confounders,”
and,
“Now first let me be clear: I’ve already conceded the difficulties in saying anything conclusively without the praying monk. However, a re-capitation that occurred directly after a monk’s prayerful request is certainly a piece of evidence we should examine in determining whether or not Buddha was God. But again, this single instance would not be any sort of conclusive proof we could establish as we do in science.”
What in any of that is vague or slippery? Note: verifiable connection, not verified.
And although I agree with your 2), I wasn’t insinuating Newton had insufficient data about falling objects. There simply had to have been an “initial moment” where Newton first pondered the connection we now call gravity. In that moment, was his reasoning post hoc?
Let’s just admit DD might have jumped the gun and get back to the FSM discussion.
Arthur
says...This is the scenario on which you pronounce that stuff about “its anecdotal nature and ambiguity,” and how there’s “no discernible way of verifying who or what actually triggered the recapitation,” and how there are “too many confounders.”
Here the doubts in the previous scenario appear to have been resolved to your satisfaction. Now, apparently, it is appropriate for you to conclude that “a re-capitation that occurred directly after a monk’s prayerful request is certainly a piece of evidence” of something.
Not only are you guilty of committing post hoc ergo propter hoc, you have succeeded in missing the entire point of the thought experiment. Our knowledge of the recapitation does not improve with the addition of a praying monk. Neither more nor less causality is evident in any of the scenarios. The purpose of the two hippie stories is precisely to illustrate why a causal assumption about the monk—though appearing initially plausible—is logically incorrect. Other possibilities might be: imagine the prayer taking place at greater and greater distances from the recapitation; imagine the success of the recapitation being less than total (maybe the head reattaches but the man stays dead); imagine the content of the prayer becoming less and less specific; oh, what if the spoken words got increasingly rude or inappropriate? Like, “I shouldn’t have to look at this goddamn mess, goddammit!”
Now, if you think it’s unfair to characterize you as someone who has concluded, or inferred, or posited, or assumed something—if you spoke more strongly than you intended—if you were simply contemplating the possibility of a potential causal link between the prayer and the recapitation—then, when someone calls you out for post hoc ergo propter hoc, an appropriate and useful response would be something like “I mis-spoke,” or “I overstated my case,” or “I was just thinking out loud about the possible potential of stuff.”
If, instead, you devote an entire post to defending your use of strong words like “evidence,” and “justification,” and “verifiable,” you provide evidence that you are not simply contemplating potential possibilities; you really do want to claim what it sounds like you’re claiming, and you’re simply trying to insulate yourself against a justified charge of bad logic.
I understand if there are other things you’d rather be talking about, but Deacon is not the one with a difficulty to dance around here. And the FSM discussion seems to suffer from a similar disease anyway: on odd breaths you point out the weaknesses in the things you’re saying and on even breaths you continue to say them.