DaveC426913 said:
No, you are committing the false dichotomy fallacy. You are ascribing to her argument only a black and white choice. That, if gravity has a non-zero chance of changing, she might as well jump off a cliff.
Given the assumption she's talking about gravity, itself, changing, no,
she is committing the false dichotomy fallacy, which I demonstrate by suggesting she apply it to her own real life. The false dichotomy I assert is understood to be a logical extention of hers, in order to discover hers. In other words, if her false dichotomy is valid then she ought to be able to apply it in all cases. Her false dichotomy is that all probabilities, because they are probabilities, and not certainties, should carry the same black or white weight in making us question assumptions and be humble. I am saying that she can't use that argument: some probabilities are SO HIGH that it is pointless to use them to demonstrate the error of certitude, or to caution someone to be careful. If she thinks gravity, or anything equally fundamental, is a good choice for this purpose, I seriously question her powers of reason and motives. If she thinks a tiny, tiny probability should be given so much weight, let her action speak louder than words. Otherwise, her point is incredibly poorly made, and her motivation, therefore, highly suspect.
If you're going to fault someone for making errors, you can't do so by making errors yourself.
Which means nothing unless you demonstrate, rather than merely assert without proof, that I am making errors.
Your statement is argumentative; it doesn't actually get us closer to an answer, but it does erode the process of discussion by adding contempt to it.
ar·gu·men·ta·tive *(ärgy-mnt-tv)
adj.
1. Given to arguing; disputatious.
2. Of or characterized by argument:
If I were, which I am not, then you would be also, since you are chronically rebutting every post I make. I don't find you to be arguing because you enjoy arguing, however. I think you're rebutting what I say because you are sincere in your beliefs, as am I.
The point is humility. Good scientists have it. Bad scientists are supremely confident in their universe.
How does it teach humility to coach people to doubt an assertion which has a minuscule probability of being erroneous? The fact she chose that particular example raises alarm bells in my mind, because there are so many much better examples of an assumption getting someone into trouble in Science.
I can't think of a good reason for her to pick that example for the purpose you ascribe to her.
A gigantic straw man.
Get off yer soapbox and argue the case at-hand, not the one you'd like to argue instead.
Shame on you.
And where exactly do they learn this? Or do you just assume they'll pick it up?
This is circular. She's not trying to undermine science unless you make your case that that is what she's trying to do. You can't use your case to support your case.
The issue you and I are at odds about is whether she is just science-bashing or teaching a valid lesson. Both the crackpot and the reasonably cautious person can make the same true recommendation about what a person's attitude should be toward science, i.e., don't get overconfident about assertions arising from Science, because Science has been wrong in the past, but there's a huge difference in what they would be up to in pointing that out. If all she is up to is protecting Philosophy from getting an inferiority complex, then we're under no obligation to play that game.
This is all dreadful logic Zoob. You're better than this. I think you've gotten caught up in an argument that looks a lot like arguments you've seen before, and you're just whipping out all your opinions without examining this specific case on its own merits. You're having a knee-jerk reaction.
Dave, it speaks well of you that your knee-jerk reaction was to assume she has the best motives. My initial reaction to her statement was confusion and my meticulous combing of her wording and phrasing to figure out what she's driving at has lead me in a very different direction. My reaction is not knee-jerk. The whole process has been quite laborious and methodical. Shame on you (to throw your attempt at guilt-flinging back at you) for not observing how meticulous and thoughtful I am being.
The identification of implications and assumptions can be confounded by things such as translations, or the person not having made a good, articulate, statement of what they meant, the abstraction of a statement from context, typo's, etc. Given we don't have the teacher in question to question, I have been inordinately willing to meticulously thump, probe, weight, measure, palpate and otherwise examine her statement. It's hinkey, and I'm not the only one to have that reaction.
It's not clear to me where you get the idea philosophy has any "job", as if it has been established to everyone's satisfaction that philosophy has a proper, practical niche in society. Philosophy happens, but that's about all I can say for sure about it. Science students learn the limits of science right along with the facts they learn. If learning that Einstein caused a whole restructuring
of our conception of gravity doesn't get the point across, nothing a philosophy teacher has to say about it will.
