Evidence Decides Whether or Not to Accept a Claim and Not Preferences Among Competing “Stories”
Kevin R. Henke
November 4, 2022
In Henke (2022bi), I made the following statements:
“Previously, I discussed the alchemy stories associated with Theophrastus Paracelsus in Henke (2022b) and Henke (2022bg). Lundahl (2022k) then makes some additional comments about Paracelsus and the Enlightenment:
“I do not need to believe Paracelsus had an actual contract with the devil, since that could be a misunderstanding on the part of his contemporaries, just as Gerbert (Pope Sylvester II, if I recall correctly) was considered as having made such a contract, because he was exceptionally using some not commonly used mathematical algorithms, probably no more diabolic than long division.
That there is in the Enlightenment era a story about his changing a copper penny into gold doesn't break this, since the Enlightenment era was (like Henke) obnoxiously negligent of distinctions about historicity and generally started to believe legends were a sort of fiction, to which one could obviously add.
However, it could be that the Küssdenpfennig legend should actually be classified as fake history (rather than entertaining fiction) : the owners of that house wanting to obliterate a memory of stingy rich people who "kissed each penny" like Uncle Scrooge, by claiming (falsely) it came from a "near miracle" by Paracelsus, done to sympathetic poor people.”
In this case, I at least agree with Lundahl (2022k) that there is no rational reason to believe any of these stories about Paracelsus or others having contracts with the devil. However, I’m the skeptic in this debate. It’s Mr. Lundahl that cannot separate cartoonish delusions (e.g., Genesis 3) from reality (e.g., an ancient Earth). I also do not automatically believe any story coming out of the Enlightenment. All stories must be verified with evidence, no matter if they are in today’s New York Times, recorded in the Enlightenment or found in the Bible. As I state in Henke (2022b), Henke (2022dv) and Henke (2022eu), the first reaction to any claim should be skepticism. Skepticism is the default position. This is why good evidence should always accompany a new claim. If the purveyors of a claim simply promise to provide evidence later or if they claim that large numbers of people already accept it as fact or that the “earliest known audience” believed it, it’s wise not to accept the claim until reliable evidence comes forward.”
Lundahl (2022v) then comments on my bolded statement:
“It cannot be biographically in any given person as to all and any claims given by his parents.
The end result of this position is therefore that most people applying it (converts and apostates being two exceptions) will continue believing what the parents taught them, and use that as ground for scepticism against any claim going against it. End of debate, not just this one but every one.
The first reaction to any unusual claim will inevitably be some kind of scepticism. Mild or suspicious, hidden or shown.
But finally, the reason for not believing story A cannot be that it isn't backed up by stories B and C, each of which needs to be backed up by two more stories, since ultimately that would be a reason against believing any story at all, including obliging you to second guess everything you were taught by your parents. The final reason for not believing story A is believing story B instead.
Both I and Henke show this attitude.
I have quoted how Henke shows it : his ultimate reason against Genesis 3 being his belief that "an ancient Earth" (presumably beyond the 7000 + years accorded by Biblical chronology, and presumably very far beyond it, nearly 7 million times beyond it) is not a story, but reality itself. That is exactly how little he realises a very basic reality, that, reality or not reality, Henke learned this precisely as a story.
Now, the two principles where we disagree (when evaluating stories, apart from belief systems) are:
·
o I believe that most people under most circumstances behave like the NYT journalist and like people believing him so that a story presented as historic fact should be believed until there are specific reasons to doubt it;
o Henke believes that journalistic standards of some paper (perhaps NYT, perhaps some other, certainly peer reviewed journals) are an exceptional mild breeeze of sanity in an overall hurricane of human irrationality;
·
o Henke believes that reconstruction by scientific agreed on standards of research is a fairly safe way at arriving at truth, also about the past, even without support from stories;
o I believe that is another example of the trope "history lost and spectacularily recovered" which is, on my view, the real bad thing not to believe, which unfortunately Mormons believed about Golden Plates, some Scientologists (perhaps not lower levels) about Xenu, and Evolutionists about Millions and Billions of Years.
I don't think this adds up to Henke being and me not being the sceptic in this debate. For that matter, it need not add up to me being and Henke not being the sceptic in this debate either.
That's why I think a certain concentration on actual arguments and refraining from ad hominem's like Henke's would be a good idea.
Because, obviously, it was a very grave ad hominem and also a claim of authority on Henke's part, to state, in essence "I am the sceptic between me and HGL, therefore I am the one who can tell what one should be sceptic about."”
In my last essay, I commented on the first two unbolded red paragraphs in the above quotation from Lundahl (2022v). I’ll now comment on the bolded section. The rest will be dealt with in upcoming essays.
Certainly, our tendency is to be more skeptical of unusual claims. If someone told you that he saw a helicopter fly over his house, you might not be skeptical of such an ordinary claim. However, if he said that he saw a flying saucer fly over his house that should solicit a lot more skepticism. If a 40-year-old individual hears the story in Genesis 3 for the first time, she’s likely to be skeptical of such a baseless story. However, if an individual first hears Genesis 3 when she’s four-years-old and if authority figures keep telling her that it actually happened, then she might believe it into adulthood unless she receives some good training in critical thinking and skepticism.
Also, Mr. Lundahl is again failing to realize that people are influenced by more than what their parents teach them. They are influenced, sometimes even more, by grandparents, other relatives, peers, mentors, employers, teachers, professors, clergy, and certainly by what they read and hear from various sources. My parents were not scientists and they did not teach me about the scientific method and the high value it places on skepticism. Yet, the scientific method and the high value it places on skepticism have a huge role in my life.
In this bolded section, Mr. Lundahl is confusing “stories” with evidence. When given a choice between two competing claims or “stories” and if one has better evidence than the other, we should be trained to select the one with the better evidence. Making the correct decision is not always easy because baseless religious and political ideas may be very attractive (such as promising eternal life or a Utopian society). In contrast, cold, but well-supported, secularism typically makes no such attractive claims.
Ultimately, good evidence is testable and confirmable. In contrast, there’s no evidence to support the stories in Genesis 1-11. They are groundless beliefs unfortunately held by a lot of people. Babinski (2010), Tobin (2010), and my other recommended references use good evidence and logic to demonstrate the untrustworthiness of Genesis and other stories in the Bible. In contrast, the verifiable data (not “stories”!) from geological investigations as listed in Dalrymple (1991), Prothero (2007), Strahler (1999), my website and our references provide abundant and well-confirmed evidence that the Earth is ancient. It’s not just a belief. In contrast, Mr. Lundahl’s “Biblical chronology” has been demonstrated to not be a chronology at all. Mr. Lundahl’s beliefs in Genesis are demonstrably unreliable.
References:
Babinski, E. 2010. “The Cosmology of the Bible” in J.W. Loftus (ed.) The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails: Prometheus Books: Amherst, NY, USA, pp. 109-147.
Dalrymple, G.B. 1991. The Age of the Earth: Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 474 pp.
Prothero, D.R. 2007. Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters: Cambridge University Press: New York, NY, USA, 381pp.
Strahler, A.N. 1999. Science and Earth History: The Evolution/Creation Controversy: 2nd ed., Prometheus Books: Amherst, NY, USA, 552 pp.
Tobin, P. 2010. “The Bible and Modern Scholarship” in J.W. Loftus (ed.) The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails: Prometheus Books: Amherst, NY, USA, pp. 148-180.