Posted: Apr 30, 2019 4:01 pm
I think you're pretty spot on here. The species of sceptical questions we so often see PK et al drop into topics like this are clearly not concerned with understanding or unravelling the facts of the matter but with inconsequential things like amassing a tally of presumed 'wins', tone policing, and setting the self-declated mythist up as the sole arbiter of truth. If the mythists were actually concerned with unravelling the facts of the matter they wouldn't feel the need to argue in such bad faith. But then again, at the end of the day faith is all they have, and I suppose for sone bad faith is still better than no faith at all.Cito di Pense wrote:THWOTH wrote:How might we support a claim to any objective fact without reference to the available evidence? What form of pure argument would you a) find personally acceptable, and b) support itself without evidence?
In other words, all you have accomplished with your statement above is to place conditions on the arguments of others which can never fullfil the requirements you've insisting on. You're now the creator of a fallacy-generating machine - which is nothing to boast about or gloat over.
The reason these sorts of conversations never go anywhere is that citations are not the same thing as evidence, barring a system in place to validate citations, such as peer review. But than, this requires one to be immersed in an academic community that knows the difference between peer-reviewed literature and gray literature. The issue is compounded by the proliferation of what look like academic publications, but amount to self-published ramblings. Only people who know what they're doing can sort out the gold from the tailings. So, these conversations never go anywhere. They're philosophical, about the conditions we shall or shall not place on arguments.What's your explanation of the origin of the universe?
Yeah, it looks like a question, but it isn't. It's a schoolyard taunt, far from a schoolyard. There is no duty of care to respond to such shit seriously.
"What is this, kindergarten for babies?"