post hoc, ergo propter hoc

[metacrock]

I used to amass evidence for miracles with scientific verification; these can be found in connection with Lourdes and a few other places, Lourdes is the best. For a long time atheists didn't know what to say then would amass back with various things from claiming that the stie is owned and ran by the city of Lourdes for profit, to just claiming it's all a like and they refuse to believe it.

now they have hit upon a tactic that gives them the illusion of using logic to dispel miracles. they calim that if you have a miracle and you claim that there is a miracle you are comitting the fallacy of post hock ergo proctor hock.

why? I guess becuase they think that if you believe in god before the event and then you assume God "did it" then you are assuming the that the stitaution before the fact is the same as after (ie there is a god) you are committing the fallacy.

of course that has nothing to do with the fallcy.

I gavem my testimony about the miracle that got me to believe when I was an atheist. So I don't fit the technicality of hteir argument because I went from atheism to belief so it wasnt the same assumption after as before.

of course this means nothing to them.

heres' the miracle.

brother is writing on the floor in pain. for reasons I wont go into I could not call EMR. our of despiration and frustration I prayed to Jesus and my brother stopped and went to sleep immediately.

the atheists were extremely insulting. Im so so very very stupid to believe this.

the reason is because it could have been anything that made him stop and it's just a big coincidence.

I say that assuming a change from statsis with the introduction of a veriable and no other veriables are presnet to expalin it, is the nature of how we determine cause and effect always, given a tight enough corrollation between the veriable introduced and the cahnge.

I say if the prayer had been a pill they would have no trouble attributing the change to the pill.


they say that's right because we know pills cause things but we also know there are no miracles so this can't be noe.

I say that's begging the question.

that say "m doing post hock ergo proctork hoc

I say they don't have the brains God gave cheese and they don't know logic worth beans.

[elephantchang51]

Dear Metacrock,
Perhaps I am missing your point,but I would like to know how miracles can ever be scientifically verified.My understanding,and please correct me if I err,is that they are essentially a matter of faith,as is all belief in supernatural phenomenon.That is not to say there is no evidence for such an explanation,merely that any explanation would lie outside the scope of science.
Best wishes Peter.

[unkleE]

Dec 25, 2008 16:47:27 GMT metacrock said:

I say if the prayer had been a pill they would have no trouble attributing the change to the pill.

they say that's right because we know pills cause things but we also know there are no miracles so this can't be noe.

I say that's begging the question.

that say "m doing post hock ergo proctork hoc

I say they don't have the brains God gave cheese and they don't know logic worth beans.

Lol!!! I've got to say that last line just broke me up. That dialogue seems so real, yet so funny. Thanks.

[unkleE]

Dec 25, 2008 20:01:34 GMT elephantchang51 said:

I would like to know how miracles can ever be scientifically verified.My understanding,and please correct me if I err,is that they are essentially a matter of faith,as is all belief in supernatural phenomenon.That is not to say there is no evidence for such an explanation,merely that any explanation would lie outside the scope of science.

Peter,

I am interested in your comment - you are being very fair-minded and I agree with you up to a point. But I'd like to explore it further. Cause is a very interesting concept - we can approach it on several levels.

1. It is easy to observe that something occurs after something else, and not too hard to establish that B follows A regularly. Statistically we can readily establish correlation.

2. Establishing a mechanism that makes a connection between the two events is more difficult. We think that, if we can work out the scientific laws we believe describe how things occur, then we have established cause - e.g. once Newton discovered the laws of motion, we can explain why a rocket follows a certain path. But I wonder if we are actually assuming the connection or causation and then describing it, not proving it. But anyway, that level of understanding can be difficult to obtain.

3. Causation is a difficult concept philosophically. How does something cause something else? Philosophers have argued over criteria for causation, and they are difficult to establish. I have seen some atheists who question that causation is even a meaningful concept, though I suspect they were saying this more to protect their belief (we were discussing the first cause of the universe at the time).

So when we look at alleged miracles, I wonder how we might reasonably test whether any can be "scientifically verified"?

I suggest the nature of the question severely constrains the possible answer. Since God (as generally understood) is not part of this space-time universe, he cannot, by definition, be measured directly. So his causation of any event can only ever (in this life, at any rate) be inferred, or not inferred. I presume this is your point.

But that doesn't mean we have no evidence and can draw no conclusions. After all, science isn't the only paradigm we have for knowing things. Historians make judgments that may sometimes be based on science (e.g. carbon dating), but more commonly use non-scientific forms of historical analysis. We all draw conclusions about many things, from politics to ethics to personal decisions, based on experience, reading, discussion, etc, and we don't thereby necessarily regard our choices as trivial or without foundation.

So with a miracle claim, we can ascertain the facts, to ensure a given story isn't just hearsay. Then we can test to see if there are plausible alternative explanations for an alleged miracle. Thirdly, we can check to see if there is any reason to suppose God may have done it (e.g. perhaps the unusual event occurred after prayer).

For example, this apparent healing miracle occurred in a specific place and time and involved people who have been named (so it's not just an urban myth). The reporter is a respected medical specialist, working with a specialist medical team using high-tech equipment. It is possible that they were all mistaken in their diagnosis that the man was clinically dead, but unlikely. And the unusual event occurred after the doctor prayed. Seems to me that a miracle is a quite plausible explanation, though certainly not a certain one.

Then we can see whether there are many events like this. If just one apparent miracle occurs, we might reasonably say that a naturalistic explanation is quite possible. But if we discover a large number of such events, then the probability that they all have naturalistic explanations falls, by simple statistics. And since there are literally millions of such claims, and since at least a reasonable number of them have been investigated by competent people (e.g. there is a World Christian Doctors Network that presents documentation, and a number of apparent miracles at Lourdes have been found to be genuine by a medical commission), I believe it is an unreasonable (statistically) conclusion to claim that they all have naturalistic explanations.

No, it's not scientific proof, but it's strong evidence, such as we'd use to make most of our daily decisions. How would you respond to this?

Eric

[rfmoo]

As a Classicist (though many others could do it) I would respectfully suggest the title be changed to its Latin form, "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc," unless of course some joke is involved (I completely missed the one on Plonker--that's what I get for not being British (?)). We wouldn't want to give the heathen ammunition.

Best,

Richard

[metacrock]

Dec 25, 2008 20:01:34 GMT elephantchang51 said:

Dear Metacrock,
Perhaps I am missing your point,but I would like to know how miracles can ever be scientifically verified.My understanding,and please correct me if I err,is that they are essentially a matter of faith,as is all belief in supernatural phenomenon.That is not to say there is no evidence for such an explanation,merely that any explanation would lie outside the scope of science.
Best wishes Peter.

there's always going to be a epistemological gap. what you can verify is that event A has no apparent naturalistic explaination and seems to contradict what we would expect of nature.

That is not "proof" in an absolute sense, it's close enough for common sense.

atheist incredulity, which is all they have, places circular reasoning games and says nothing can ever been accepted as miracle because they don't happen, and thousands of claims of miracles are written off without investigation then the next claim is dismissed for want of evidence.

these guys will be in hell a couple of million years before they even accept that where ever they are it ant six Flags over Texas.

[metacrock]

Dec 26, 2008 0:29:59 GMT @rfmoo said:

As a Classicist (though many others could do it) I would respectfully suggest the title be changed to its Latin form, "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc," unless of course some joke is involved (I completely missed the one on Plonker--that's what I get for not being British (?)). We wouldn't want to give the heathen ammunition.

Best,

Richard

bad typing. but can you change a title?

[rfmoo]

Dear Metacrock,

Seems so. I am, by the way, typo central.

As for your point, I couldn't agree more.

Best,

Richard

[elephantchang51]

Eric,
My response is that we are largely in agreement here.I would only dispute what you describe as strong evidence.This seems extremely weak evidence to me.The example you cite of the 'healing miracle' is I believe an example of the human tendency to remember the apparently remarkable and disregard the mundane.How often do we have accounts of the opposite result,ie.the patient dies,or does not recover in this example,with prayer making apparently no difference,to compare with?What say you?
Best wishes,Peter.

[elephantchang51]

Metacrock,
I would say it is an enormous leap to go from 'event A has no apparent naturalistic explanation and seems to contradict what we would expect of nature',to attributing such events to supernatural agencies,which definitionally cannot be scientifically verified.It might be close enough for you,but my common sense tells me to demand a higher degree of evidence first.Atheists often argue from incredulity because we are dealing with incredible claims,so even if it was their only argument it would still be a strong one.

[unkleE]

Dec 28, 2008 7:43:12 GMT elephantchang51 said:

Eric,
My response is that we are largely in agreement here.I would only dispute what you describe as strong evidence.This seems extremely weak evidence to me.The example you cite of the 'healing miracle' is I believe an example of the human tendency to remember the apparently remarkable and disregard the mundane.How often do we have accounts of the opposite result,ie.the patient dies,or does not recover in this example,with prayer making apparently no difference,to compare with?What say you?
Best wishes,Peter.

It is nice to be in at least partial agreement. But we still are thinking differently about the strength of the evidence. Two points .....

1. If we look at a single event, yes, we can find another explanation. But if we look at the mass of miracle claims, the evidence is stronger, because my view can cope with non-genuine claims, but your view requires every one of them to be non-miraculous.

This can be seen by using statistics. (I don't suggest these numbers mean anything scientific, this is just for illustration.) Let's just assume for the purposes of discussion that the christian doctors website has 100 cases of apparent miracle with plausible evidence, and that each of them were considered only 1% likely to be genuine. The probability that they are all not genuine turns out to be one third, i.e. it is twice as likely that at least one is genuine than that they are all non-genuine. Thus the weight of evidence of the many, many cases of apparent miracle is "very strong".

2. I think the evidence of apparent miracles is not the strongest reason for believing in God, but I do think it should be enough to make one think again.

[metacrock]

I didn't say such experinces were proof. I said they were rationally warranted. I don't believe any of actually know anything. I think you are pretentious and uneducated ed.

if the things I've experinces spritually happened to you you wuld not be giving us this know it all pretsense at philosophical calp trrp. you would be on your knees sobbing.

expreince of the divine is the only vaild reason t believe. the fives proof suck. The only reason to belive is that you experince it first hand. Once you do you can't be shaken.

you are not talking about the post hock ergo proctor hock thing.

[metacrock]

Dec 25, 2008 20:01:34 GMT elephantchang51 said:

Dear Metacrock,
Perhaps I am missing your point,but I would like to know how miracles can ever be scientifically verified.My understanding,and please correct me if I err,is that they are essentially a matter of faith,as is all belief in supernatural phenomenon.That is not to say there is no evidence for such an explanation,merely that any explanation would lie outside the scope of science.
Best wishes Peter.

that is nothing more than circular reasoning.

this is how we determine cause and effect in everything always. to then say it can't be this time because we know up front there can't be any kind fo supernatural, so any evidence for it must be wrong a prori is nothing more than circular and question begging.

that's the kid rot that passing for thought among "free thinkers" (slave thinkers).

here's how it works.


all you are doing is arbitrarily writing off any counter evidence on the basis that previous write-offs have eliminated any previous evidence, having established by circular and arbitrary means that there is no evidence for the supernatural, none my ever be presented.

[metacrock]

Dec 28, 2008 7:43:12 GMT elephantchang51 said:

Eric,
My response is that we are largely in agreement here.I would only dispute what you describe as strong evidence.This seems extremely weak evidence to me.The example you cite of the 'healing miracle' is I believe an example of the human tendency to remember the apparently remarkable and disregard the mundane.How often do we have accounts of the opposite result,ie.the patient dies,or does not recover in this example,with prayer making apparently no difference,to compare with?What say you?
Best wishes,Peter.

I think your argument is the extremely foolish tendency of a self imporatnt know nothing named Proudfoot to merely lose the phenomena so he doesn't have to deal with counter evidence.

what difference does it make if the counter examples are a million to one? IN that assumption you are assuming that miracles are not dependent upon a will on the other end but would happen automatically life a force of nature.

I didn't say anything about proving miracles. you have complete avoided the topic which is post hock ergo proctor hock. I am not interested in how bright you are or your cute little highly original arguments that I've heard a million times. I wanted to discuss what I brought up.

[elephantchang51]

Metacrock,
Pretty angry eh?You will get nowhere trying to browbeat dissenters into submission.Now I understand why you have met with hostility in your dealings with atheists elsewhere.I have treat you with civility and respect,but if you are unable to reciprocate then I am sorry to say our correspondence is over.Perhaps you could learn from some of the other regular posters on this site who are able to disagree without nastiness?
Yours,Peter.