If I Say Food Is Cheap, Especially Meat…

Lately I’ve been looking for new strategies in my discussions with atheists. I’ve come to realize, that which people need to see has often already been said, so sometimes it’s best to just restate things exactly as they’ve already been stated, and keep my commentary to a minimum.

I recently spent some time dissecting the 200+ comments in the thread of SI’s I Wish I’d Written That, and I’ve noticed that demands for clarity and accountability are very annoying to many atheists, for example PhillyChief:

11 December 2009 at 2:36 PM, PhillyChief said,

..unexplained effects are evidence only for unexplained effects. To argue that they are evidence for the supernatural requires a warrant for the supernatural hypothesis first, and no, the effects are not the warrant. That’s circular reasoning.

11 December 2009 at 5:23 PM, I responded,

..perhaps you can precisely identify what “warrant for a hypothesis” entails, and give examples of hypotheses with warrants?

11 December 2009 at 6:36 PM, PhillyChief replied,

Quite simply, plausibility to connect a hypothesis to data. For instance, if I hear a noise in the other room and I know my wife is home, it’s a warranted hypothesis that she caused the noise. What’s unwarranted is the hypothesis that the noise came from a yeti or, unfortunately, Olivia Wilde, regardless of how much I wish it was due to Olivia Wilde being in the other room.

Note that PhillyChief is somewhat non-sequitur as it gives us an ordinary, everyday occurrence to demonstrate when a hypothesis is warranted: if his wife is home and he hears a noise in the next room, it’s a warranted hypothesis that his wife made the noise, presumably because people are known to make noises in adjacent rooms. Duh! This is commonsense. However, in the case of the video game incident, we don’t have an ordinary, everyday occurrence. We don’t have something that can be explained by appeal to a physical agent in an adjacent room. We have an empirical observation that was both visual and auditory, directly observed by two other witnesses besides myself. What hypothesis would PhillyChief allow here? That we don’t know? If that’s all he’s got to offer, of what use is his reluctancy?

11 December 2009 at 6:57 PM, I asked,

So then, if you say it’s plausible to connect hypothesis X to data point Y, then, everything’s okay?

11 December 2009 at 7:40 PM, PhillyChief replies,

I’m not applying subjective reasons. The existence of the supernatural has not been established, therefore supernatural hypotheses are unwarranted. That’s pretty objective reasoning.

11 December 2009 at 8:15 PM, I replied,

That is certainly *NOT* objective reasoning that any scientists use, but subjective reasoning that you use. Real scientists do not require that phenomena be established before making hypotheses about them… Science – by it’s very nature – seeks to explain that which is *NOT* established. It does not limit itself to hypotheses from “established phenomena.”

12 December 2009 at 12:34 AM, PhillyChief returned with,

Define “established phenomena”.

12 December 2009 at 1:34 AM, I replied,

You asked me to define “established phenomena,” yet you were the one who claimed, “The existence of the supernatural has not been established, therefore supernatural hypotheses are unwarranted.” You provide the definitions; you’re the one making the claim. You tell me what you meant by “established” as used in your own claim. I can’t read your mind.

12 December 2009 at 2:35 AM, PhillyChief replied,

The existence of the natural world is established (ie – it’s demonstrable).

12 December 2009 at 6:58 PM, in pursuit of maximum clarity, I ask Philly,

..does established = demonstrable, or that which has been demonstrated?

13 December 2009 at 12:15 PM, PhillyChief replies,

Demonstrated…

If we reparse Philly’s claim 11 December 2009 at 7:40 PM and substitute “demonstrated” for “established,” we get,

The existence of the supernatural has not been [demonstrated], therefore supernatural hypotheses are unwarranted.

Unless I’m misunderstanding him – which is entirely possible – that’s not objective reasoning, it’s backwards reasoning, because the whole point of science is to demonstrate currently unknown relationships between matter, energy, space and time. Science does not require that propositions be demonstrated to warrant hypotheses about them; science seeks to demonstrate propositions by making hypotheses and testing them.

Look how absurd PhillyChief’s claim becomes if we replace supernatural with asteroids and pretend we’re trying to explain Meteor Crater in the eighteenth century:

The existence of [asteroids] has not been established, therefore [asteroid] hypotheses are unwarranted.

Is that good logic?

Recall if you will Philly’s position as stated 11 December 2009 at 7:40 PM, where he says,

The existence of the supernatural has not been established, therefore supernatural hypotheses are unwarranted.

Also recall Philly’s statement 12 December 2009 at 2:35 PM, where he said,

I’m using standard definitions which you could find in a Merriam-Webster dictionary.

14 December 2009 at 4:15 PM, Philly further clarified the definition of supernatural by citing the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:

1 : of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil

2 a : departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature b : attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)

15 December 2009 at 7:08 PM, I said,

We are in complete agreement as to the definitions. For clarity, I’m referring to, “of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil” as 1b, because technically, something can be beyond the observable universe yet *not* a God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil – right?

Note that Philly never objected to this, until after it became undeniable that according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary’s definition of “an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe” which we agreed to, today’s leading theoretical physicists who posit hypotheses like parallel universes, string theory, m-theory, etc. would disagree with Philly’s claim that “supernatural hypotheses are unwarranted.” For PhillyChief to claim supernatural hypotheses are unwarranted is an insult to a subset of professional scientists studying the existence of our universe.

17 December 2009 at 7:14 PM, Philly objects,

..you’re deliberately trying to stretch the meaning of the word “supernatural” by trying to separate away the “especially: of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil”. It’s the same tactic as stretching the meaning of faith to encompass everything in order to claim faith is used when it’s not.

Did anyone catch that shifty little move? PhillyChief acts as if the word “especially” REQUIRES that the condition(s) “of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil” MUST be present to justifiedly define a proposition as supernatural! Yet clearly, that’s not what Merriam-Webster said, and Philly’s argument relies on incorrect usage of the word especially. Clearly, an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe that has no relation to God or spirit can exist.

If I say, “food is cheap, especially meat,” that means both food and meat are cheap. Accordingly, if Merriam-Webster defines ‘supernatural’ as “of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil,” that means both “existence beyond the visible observable universe” and “relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil” are supernatural. Case closed. QED. Basic English.

I submit Philly’s illogic to be so well-documented as to be undeniable. If I’ve missed something, by all means, let me know.