Morning Scepticism: Absolutes

To have an absolutist worldview is something I can't really understand. History, if nothing else, should teach us that holding absolutist views isn't a wise idea. So for those who try to build a fortress of unassailable rightness, to me, seem to be doing little more than protecting their sacred cows. This is not to disparage the desire or search for truth, but to question why absolutes would be considered desirable in that quest. they're not desirable, they're a hindrance on making real progress.

Morning Scepticism: Implications

I really don't care about going into the details on a lot of nonsense, there's too much real stuff to learn without wasting time on things that clearly aren't worth consideration. yet some knowledge is useful for what is a fruitful exercise, carrying the implications of a position to their rational ends. That way, if the statement is absurd in its own right, then it can be shown as such in its own context. I often find myself getting sucked into discussions of the absurd for this reason, the absurdity is what makes the otherwise tedious interesting.

Morning Scepticism: Presuppositions

One really devious tactic of argument is to take the argument away from the merits of what's in question, and turn it into a conflict of worldviews. Take homoeopathy, for example, that instead of arguing that homoeopathy is reasonable, it would be to take the opponents of homoeopathy as being materialists and that the criticisms of homoeopathy only work under that commitment to materialism. The tactic, in effect, is saying that the proponent and the sceptic are working in different realities, and thus the debate shifts to the relative merits of the worldviews rather than the topic at hand. In other words, any unreasonableness of a given proposition can be hidden behind the alleged absurdity of the sceptic's prior commitments.

And that pesky problem that the presupposition may be a conclusion rather than a prior commitment? That's letting accuracy get in the way of apologetics.

Morning Scepticism: Astrological

Astrology is, generally speaking, a way to ascertain knowledge about affairs and events that happen here on earth. It's like trying to figure out how a ball would behave if let go - for if we knew how the ball would behave then we have a predictive power for the future. The hope, ultimately, is to use such a tool in order to have better outcomes than would happen without. The problem, though, is in the notion of a causal mechanism. There's nothing linking the stars to personalities or events, except through the practice of astrology itself. The belief that Mars ascending might signal a good time to go to war will mean that looking back there will be a correlation between war and the ascension of Mars. It's causation, in other words, is entirely imposed by the pattern itself.

It's not to say that one needs to know a mechanism in order for the pattern to be meaningful, after all washing hands helped reduce infection before the germ theory of disease was known. But the lack of mechanism, combined with the tautological nature of causation based on the explanation is what makes astrology an unwarranted belief.

Morning Scepticism: Pseudoreligion

When science is done wrong, it's called pseudoscience. It's pseudoscience because it's theoretically or empirically unfounded and making scientific claims that don't sit within the body of knowledge that is collectively referred to as scientific knowledge. Now it's often said that like bad science, there is bad religion. That is religion done right is a good thing while religion gone wrong is the problem. That sounds reasonable, except by what standard does religion become a pseudoreligion? With science, there's the strength of the claim proportional to the evidence and the commitment to methodology. I really don't see a parallel when it comes to religion going wrong.

The only way it makes sense to me is that religion gone wrong is akin to describing the atomic bomb as science gone wrong. The science is just fine, it's just the negative consequences that came from its use.