That’s not really how it works though. If I tell you there’s an invisible dragon living under your bed who will burn your house down at some time in the future if you don’t give me $10. You can’t disprove it, but because I’m the one making the claim that the dragon exists the burden of proof is on me.
The burden of proof tennis is quite tricky here because it’s not about whether you claim something exists, it’s whether you claim something that goes against what’s generally accepted. If I claim quantum mechanics don’t exist, it’s not on you to prove they do.
And that’s before we get into the fact that there isn’t a general consensus on whether God (or any gods) exist.
So if everyone believed in the invisible dragon under your bed, would that shift the burden of proof to you? I don’t see what the general consensus has to do with anything.
The people who say quantum mechanics exists don’t just claim it, they can demonstrate it through peer reviewed evidence. Quantum mechanics is also a theory based on observable facts intended to propose testable mechanisms by which those facts can be explained. My claim of a dragon under your bed has no such backing.
As smarter people than me have said, that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Yeah, if everyone believes there’s an invisible dragon under my bed, then that means the burden of proof is on me to claim there isn’t. And I’d probably address that with a stick.
As for assertion without evidence, how do you feel about eyewitness accounts of miracles? Or sociological reasoning on the odds of the disciples keeping a conspiracy for their whole lives? Or how about the origin of the universe - we had all the matter in the universe condensed into a single point, complete with laws that would lead to such interesting things as nuclear fusion, complex planetary orbits, and even pockets of life. Do you take it as a given that it’s far more likely for that to have come out of nowhere than for a higher power to exist and have arranged it as such?
You’re free to discount the evidence (though I’d be happy to debate it with you,) and dismiss the claims because it doesn’t align with your experiences. But note that the idea that all this happened without God is as absurd to me as the existence of God is to you, and equally unsubstantiated.
No no a stick won’t work, the invisible dragon is very small and agile and would easily dodge your stick. It only makes itself known when it wants to.
I feel the same about eyewitness accounts of miracles. Eyewitness testimony is not evidence. It could be a good place to start to investigate miraculous claims but that’s all.
I’m not dismissing claims because it doesn’t align with my experiences, but because there is no reliable evidence. In fact depending on the type of diety you propose I think many claims can be shown to be false because they a contradictory with reality.
I’d be interested to hear the evidence you have for sure. I’m open to changing my views. I’m not scholar but my understanding is that the best we have is a collection of anonymously written books which isn’t enough for me to accept such a huge claim.
I don’t know about the origin of the universe but I don’t think anyone claims things came from nothing, we simply don’t know what was before the big bang. Not knowing the answer to me isn’t a good enough reason to assume a divine entity is responsible.
Eyewitness testimony isn’t evidence, eh? Before I get too invested in this, I want to know what you do consider to be evidence. Suppose that, hypothetically, I run a study where I recruit 1000 people off the street. I tell them that at some point over the next 10 days, I’m going to pray for them to experience peace. For each person, I roll a 10 sided die to choose which day to pray on, do so, and record the result. Then at the end of the 10 days, I bring them all back and ask them to indicate on which day they felt the most peace. ~600 of them say the same day that I rolled for them, ~150 of them are one day off, and ~100 can’t give an answer. If this were to happen (solely hypothetical, ignoring any arguments about whether God would play along for a study,) would that count as evidence?
Yes that would count as evidence but only if you modified your experiment slightly:
Don’t tell anyone that you will pray for them.
Instead of personally praying for each person, give the list of participant names to someone you trust.
This person can then pray for a subset of the people listed on random days, recording the person they prayed for and the day.
You conduct interviews with the people as you suggested.
After you record the results of the interviews, you then look at the data from the person who prayed and see where things matched up. You can then observe if there are any statistically significant differences between those who were prayed for and those who were not
The reason this counts as evidence is because it’s not eyewitness testimony, it’s a controlled experiment which should be reproducible by anyone. By itself it doesn’t prove anything but it would help to start building a body of evidence that prayer can work, or not depending on your results.
So if it doesn’t meet the standards of a double blind study, it’s worthless as evidence? What about case studies?
I get that double blind studies are superior because they combat bias, but sometimes double blind studies aren’t what’s been done. Other types of studies aren’t invalid, you just have to take them with salt and consider alternative explanations - just as you do with a double blind study.
Case studies are similar in my mind to anecdotes or eyewitness testimony, an interesting starting point or indication that something might be worth digging into but not really evidence.
And yeah I suggested a double blind study because it has the most value for providing potential evidence although even that is no guarantee depending on the experiment design. It’d definitely be a good start though at the very least. You could do a non blind study but then the fact that it’s non blind will be the first thing to come up and cast doubt on the results. If you want to provide solid evidence I don’t think you would want to settle for less than that if you can avoid it.
FWIW I think there have already been studies done on prayer but they don’t seem to be conclusive from what I could tell at least but hey, I’m not a scientist. You just asked what I’d consider evidence so hopefully this has helped answer that somewhat. Even with a double blind study though I think you would have some work ahead of you but you’d definitely have my interest!
Your premise is incorrect. The burden of proof for quantum mechanics is on the people claiming they exist. They provided those proofs, which is why people believe in them. I haven’t studied quantum mechanics, but if you asked somebody who does, they could offer proof or evidence. And if they couldn’t, then your claim it doesn’t exist (until proof was proffered) would be correct.
That’s not really how it works though. If I tell you there’s an invisible dragon living under your bed who will burn your house down at some time in the future if you don’t give me $10. You can’t disprove it, but because I’m the one making the claim that the dragon exists the burden of proof is on me.
The burden of proof tennis is quite tricky here because it’s not about whether you claim something exists, it’s whether you claim something that goes against what’s generally accepted. If I claim quantum mechanics don’t exist, it’s not on you to prove they do.
And that’s before we get into the fact that there isn’t a general consensus on whether God (or any gods) exist.
So if everyone believed in the invisible dragon under your bed, would that shift the burden of proof to you? I don’t see what the general consensus has to do with anything.
The people who say quantum mechanics exists don’t just claim it, they can demonstrate it through peer reviewed evidence. Quantum mechanics is also a theory based on observable facts intended to propose testable mechanisms by which those facts can be explained. My claim of a dragon under your bed has no such backing.
As smarter people than me have said, that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Yeah, if everyone believes there’s an invisible dragon under my bed, then that means the burden of proof is on me to claim there isn’t. And I’d probably address that with a stick.
As for assertion without evidence, how do you feel about eyewitness accounts of miracles? Or sociological reasoning on the odds of the disciples keeping a conspiracy for their whole lives? Or how about the origin of the universe - we had all the matter in the universe condensed into a single point, complete with laws that would lead to such interesting things as nuclear fusion, complex planetary orbits, and even pockets of life. Do you take it as a given that it’s far more likely for that to have come out of nowhere than for a higher power to exist and have arranged it as such?
You’re free to discount the evidence (though I’d be happy to debate it with you,) and dismiss the claims because it doesn’t align with your experiences. But note that the idea that all this happened without God is as absurd to me as the existence of God is to you, and equally unsubstantiated.
No no a stick won’t work, the invisible dragon is very small and agile and would easily dodge your stick. It only makes itself known when it wants to.
I feel the same about eyewitness accounts of miracles. Eyewitness testimony is not evidence. It could be a good place to start to investigate miraculous claims but that’s all.
I’m not dismissing claims because it doesn’t align with my experiences, but because there is no reliable evidence. In fact depending on the type of diety you propose I think many claims can be shown to be false because they a contradictory with reality.
I’d be interested to hear the evidence you have for sure. I’m open to changing my views. I’m not scholar but my understanding is that the best we have is a collection of anonymously written books which isn’t enough for me to accept such a huge claim.
I don’t know about the origin of the universe but I don’t think anyone claims things came from nothing, we simply don’t know what was before the big bang. Not knowing the answer to me isn’t a good enough reason to assume a divine entity is responsible.
Eyewitness testimony isn’t evidence, eh? Before I get too invested in this, I want to know what you do consider to be evidence. Suppose that, hypothetically, I run a study where I recruit 1000 people off the street. I tell them that at some point over the next 10 days, I’m going to pray for them to experience peace. For each person, I roll a 10 sided die to choose which day to pray on, do so, and record the result. Then at the end of the 10 days, I bring them all back and ask them to indicate on which day they felt the most peace. ~600 of them say the same day that I rolled for them, ~150 of them are one day off, and ~100 can’t give an answer. If this were to happen (solely hypothetical, ignoring any arguments about whether God would play along for a study,) would that count as evidence?
Yes that would count as evidence but only if you modified your experiment slightly:
The reason this counts as evidence is because it’s not eyewitness testimony, it’s a controlled experiment which should be reproducible by anyone. By itself it doesn’t prove anything but it would help to start building a body of evidence that prayer can work, or not depending on your results.
So if it doesn’t meet the standards of a double blind study, it’s worthless as evidence? What about case studies?
I get that double blind studies are superior because they combat bias, but sometimes double blind studies aren’t what’s been done. Other types of studies aren’t invalid, you just have to take them with salt and consider alternative explanations - just as you do with a double blind study.
Case studies are similar in my mind to anecdotes or eyewitness testimony, an interesting starting point or indication that something might be worth digging into but not really evidence.
And yeah I suggested a double blind study because it has the most value for providing potential evidence although even that is no guarantee depending on the experiment design. It’d definitely be a good start though at the very least. You could do a non blind study but then the fact that it’s non blind will be the first thing to come up and cast doubt on the results. If you want to provide solid evidence I don’t think you would want to settle for less than that if you can avoid it.
FWIW I think there have already been studies done on prayer but they don’t seem to be conclusive from what I could tell at least but hey, I’m not a scientist. You just asked what I’d consider evidence so hopefully this has helped answer that somewhat. Even with a double blind study though I think you would have some work ahead of you but you’d definitely have my interest!
so, you can get around the burden of proof by getting enough people to perpetrate the lie?
Much like every good con or pyramid scheme.
Your premise is incorrect. The burden of proof for quantum mechanics is on the people claiming they exist. They provided those proofs, which is why people believe in them. I haven’t studied quantum mechanics, but if you asked somebody who does, they could offer proof or evidence. And if they couldn’t, then your claim it doesn’t exist (until proof was proffered) would be correct.
It was on them until society generally accepted it. Now if I claim it doesn’t exist, the burden is on me.
Or how about this: if I claim dinosaurs never existed and thus the fossils didn’t come from them, it’s not on you to prove they did.