in order that there may continue to be a ready supply of this...
Posted on 05/25/2015 9:39:52 AM PDT by Olog-hai
There’s a difference between defining terms and redefining terms. And using the appeal to authority for the purpose of supporting redefinition is characteristic of a deceptive argument—invalid and unsound (still synonyms).
Scientists get to choose what terminology they use to discuss scientific topics among themselves. Philosophers get to do likewise. Every philosophy class I have taken and every source I have looked up has the same definition for 'valid'. A definition which differs from yours.
I choose the definition generally agreed on by the entire philosophical community rather than a single individual who now appears to have some sort of axe to grind.
Are you upset at the direction philosophy has taken? Even modern day Thomists would agree with the distinction between valid and sound that I have merely repeated. Here is an example of a tenured Thomist philosopher working his way through an argument that he quickly determines is valid, but requires additional reasoning to show its soundness:
The question of the validity of an inference from a set of premisses is, of course, independent of the question of the truth of the premisses. -- A.C.
Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy
You can only see the first few words without a subscription, but it is clear that this sentence goes:
In its primary meaning it is arguments that are valid or invalid, according to whether the conclusion follows from the premisses. (my supposition)
i.e. it has nothing to do with whether or not the premisses are true. Only whether or not the argument is logical.
Circular argument. That which is unfactual, and especially deliberately mendacious, is illogical.
My son is majoring in Accounting and Finance but he works as a researcher at the university Plant Pathology dept(Weeds). Pretty cool job.
Are scientists not allowed to use the word mass to mean resistance to acceleration because it was used long before to mean an assembly of people or a large body of matter?
Philosophers aren't redefining valid in order to obfuscate. They are limiting the definition to one particular meaning in order to avoid obfuscation.
As a conservative I am against equivocation, obfuscation, and ambiguity.
Are you?
We do need some heavier emphasis on plant pathology, it seems sometimes.
PS. the “(a)s a conservative” statement veers into “no true Scotsman” territory.
in order that there may continue to be a ready supply of this...
Well, I am disgusted with the AGW crowd and much of the science tangential to it, for one very simple reason: peer review is now corrupted by all the studies based on false data. Since these studies are referenced in and across disciplines to prove theses, their speciousness invalidates peer review’s credibility on its face.
Whether internal arguments are valid, sound, and so forth, as you both have been discussing and arguing over, is pointless, when the data is so corrupted that the research cannot conclude results correctly and accurately.
And that makes me very angry. I have believed in the value of the Academy all my life. I’m arriving at the point of thinking it’s mostly a sham, except for accounting and electrical engineering, neither of which is my content area.
And I don't really see any solution. Good science requires significant funding. If the only funding came from the private sector then we might only get advances in short-term technological improvements.
Funding of science by democratically elected governments is supposed to be more longsighted and dispassionate, but it seems to be all caught up in the flavor of the month, which always turns out to be "Rocky Road", i.e. one crisis after another.
The long term solution is for scientists to be well-trained and courageous enough to speak up when the scientific method is being undermined or disregarded. It's also important that things stay in the open so that when failures occur they are very public.
The only good news about the AGW madness is that its proponents are so open about their ideas. When AGW finally becomes too tenuous to sustain the failure will be very public and very damning.
I only hope that when that happens, the average man in the street doesn't lose all faith in science.
That’s pretty much my point.
Does “faith” in science trump faith in the Almighty? That’s the crux of the matter. Science is merely a tool; it is not the architect of knowledge.
Or course not.
"That’s the crux of the matter."
I don't know that faith in science vs. faith in God is the crux of the matter. With regard to this particular thread, if botany is something that is important for people to do in order that humans can flourish, then God will move people to go into botany. If those he encourages to become botanists choose other less helpful fields like day trading or computer game development then His people will suffer. For them it won't be a choice between God and science but between serving God as a scientist or not.
"Science is merely a tool; it is not the architect of knowledge."
Agreed. We know that we cannot know everything. Science when done right at best gives us an approximate idea of what is going on. When science is done poorly either because of sloth or pride or greed or evil then people are harmed. So regardless of what one's faith is it is good for science to be done right.
Science can't provide its own justification. Its Architect is the only One that can.
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