surreptitious57 wrote: ↑Fri May 19, 2017 4:24 am
A phenomenon genuinely observed by one person would indeed be sufficient for them to think it happened. But it would not be sufficient for someone else that in the absence of evidence would be sceptical of it having happened. And also not all observations are genuinely observed Subjective interpretation can compromise the accuracy of the memory of the observer such as an altered mental state due to a psychological disorder or drugs. Or something relatively benign such as confirmation bias.
So far, I have to agree with you absolutely.
This is why all single person perspectives are scientifically invalid.
But not this. I think we have to separate the issue of "real" from the issue of "verifiable by others." It's certainly true that it's not often possible for us to validate the experience of another. But frequently enough, it's possible for us to get strong warrant for believing the account they provide, even if they are only one.
For example, if you told me that you flew to the moon by flapping your arms, I could perhaps not prove in an absolute way that you
had not felt that you did, (maybe due to LSD) or even (
in extremis) absolutely that you
had not, since I was not present to witness anything: but I could reason that you
could not -- that there was no likelihood of the physics and biology described being possible -- and I would have the best possible reasons for thinking that.
However, even that's not absolute. For if a Supreme Being had swept you up (supposing such to exist) then all bets in that regard would be off. I'd just be in a position to say I considered it unlikely...but I could no longer insist I knew you hadn't.
On the other hand, if you told me something more ordinary...like that your cat died, I would have insufficient reason to disbelieve you about that. Cats do die...I have seen them do so. And I cannot perhaps imagine you having a sufficient, reasonable motive for lying about it on this occasion. So even though you had seen it -- and I had not -- I would have sufficient warrant for believing you. Indeed, it would be a bit extraordinary for me to call your claim of the cat's mortality into question. I would need special additional reasons to do so.
The sum of my argument about single-person testimony is this: the decisive element is not the fact that only one person claimed to have seen the thing. That
can be sufficient warrant. It won't be verifiable, for me, but I'd be less than rational to insist on disbelieving. The phenomenon the testifier describes to me could very well have happened -- but as a recipient of the testimony, all I can do is estimate the probability of the description, and then say that I was inclined to believe or to disbelieve it.
Now, with thedoc's experience: how do we estimate the probability that he really experienced something, and that that phenomenon itself was real? For unless we already know (for some reason we'd have to explain) that spiritual experiences cannot be genuine, then real
it could be -- even if he were the only observer (though if I recall, he claims others too).
...scientists who are trained to be as bias free as possible...
It's the other kind that are worrisome...and not as infrequent as one would wish.
Look how long, for example, the "monkey-to-man" chart has persisted in textbooks and in the public imagination. And yet genetics has show us that any "common ancestor" cannot be a monkey, but rather would have to be back in the primordial ooze.
Now given that the monkey-to-man progressive theory is absolutely debunked scientifically now, we must find it quite extraordinary not to find an immediate and total scientific retraction of the idea. One would wish scientists to be very diligent about not allowing the public to persist in error...Alas, they are often not.
Science, like any other human endeavor, has a noble code of ethics
in theory. But it is also staffed by human beings, with their own prejudices and political interests, and with susceptibility we all have to group-think and orthodoxy.
One would wish that the scientific method itself would render that impossible: but apparently, it does not. Look how long it took to establish "scientifically" that smoking is responsible for cancers. We all knew, long before the science was announced as settled, that there was going to be a strong connection. But politics and economics kept the scientists from setting forth the case with the requisite clarity, and contrary "scientists" employed by the tobacco companies kept issuing false reports. Today, the issue is still not as clear as it should be in many people's minds.
I think there's an analogy in "climate science" today. You may decide which side is faking the "science." Certainly, given their opposite claims, at least one side has to be.
So even in science, questions like "which scientists," "with what motives," and "with what certainty" remain to be answered before we invest trust. It's certainly not as clear as assuming that scientists are just people who are free of bias.