NY Times - Cyclists are said to back claims Armstrong doped
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BikingBernie wrote:
True, if only because they have no grasp of the nature of the debate. However, even in the absence of that understanding, some do appear to draw comfort from parroting the sloganising of post-modernists and their ilk by claiming that no amount of evidence amounts to 'proof'.No tA Doctor wrote:I don't think anyone arguing that there's no proof LA doped is doing so from a committed philosophical perspective on the nature of proof.
However, the are multiple 'norms' in relation to the way a word such as 'proof' is used. It could be argued that it is WADA that sets the 'cultural normative manner in which we use the word' in relation to doping cases. This means that any amount of evidence which would lead to an investigatory panel being 'comfortably satisfied' that doping took place must be taken as 'proof'. The WADA norm does not even demand confirmation of a positive test via a matching 'B' sample and accepts that the eye-witness testimony of others, evidence of purchase of doping-related materials and so forth also amounts to evidence. I would argue that, in Armstrong's case, the evidence actually provides a higher level of proof than WADA demands.No tA Doctor wrote:It's only necessary to show that enough "proof" exists within the confines of the cultural normative manner in which we use the word, not to establish proof as epistemologically absolute.
Just read this BB and have to say it's pretty funny. You're criticising other people for not understanding the debate, but you actually don't understand logic, despite tenuously linking it to this subject. Incredibly pretentious.0 -
dennisn wrote:
Had to throw my 2 cents worth in. Feel like I've been absent for a while and I have. Going to try to write myself back into tip top forum shape. I'll be worse than ever. Anyway, I just recently retired from the business world. Much to my delight, I might add. Actually it was company downsizing and I had planned to retire in early January 2011. So sometimes things work out OK. Can't believe the time I now have for riding. It's like a whole other world. Pick the nice days, go out when you want, do some weight training
on the bad days. It's great. I'm just not sure that since I have this new attitude(happy and carefree) that my postings(formerly savage and precise) will possibly be bright and cheerfull from now on. A whole new me. Hmmmmmm 5 PM, beautiful afternoon, tires pumped up, see ya later.
Why do people put off retiring? They invariably love it once they do.
Enjoy your retirement Dennis.0 -
Please, point out the errors in my reasoning, otherwise what you say is just empty posturing...Abdoujaparov wrote:you actually don't understand logic, despite tenuously linking it to this subject. Incredibly pretentious.
I teach at a HE college in Switzerland but live just over the border in a village in the French Alps. My life is far from 'sad'.Tusher wrote:BB, what do you do for a living?
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Just out of interest, Bernie, when did you leave the UK?Le Blaireau (1)0
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BikingBernie wrote:
Please, point out the errors in my reasoning, otherwise what you say is just empty posturing...Abdoujaparov wrote:you actually don't understand logic, despite tenuously linking it to this subject. Incredibly pretentious.
I teach at a HE college in Switzerland but live just over the border in a village in the French Alps. My life is far from 'sad'.Tusher wrote:BB, what do you do for a living?
It's not a mistake in your reasoning, it's that you don't understand the subjects of logic and epistemology, but still decided to bring them up (perhaps to make yourself look smart?). You mentioned assorted cranks who say epistemological doubts mean that we can't prove science, but there are in fact winning arguments that doubt scientific proof. At its best, science only gives us a mix of valid deductions (not proofs) and strong inductions (also not proofs). Re deductions, there will always be doubt in the premises and re induction, there will always be doubt in the method.
I'm not going to go into details here because it's not relevant to the armstrong doping debate, but you decided to bring it up anyway despite not understanding the arguments.0 -
Abdoujaparov wrote:BikingBernie wrote:
Please, point out the errors in my reasoning, otherwise what you say is just empty posturing...Abdoujaparov wrote:you actually don't understand logic, despite tenuously linking it to this subject. Incredibly pretentious.
I teach at a HE college in Switzerland but live just over the border in a village in the French Alps. My life is far from 'sad'.Tusher wrote:BB, what do you do for a living?
It's not a mistake in your reasoning, it's that you don't understand the subjects of logic and epistemology, but still decided to bring them up (perhaps to make yourself look smart?). You mentioned assorted cranks who say epistemological doubts mean that we can't prove science, but there are in fact winning arguments that doubt scientific proof. At its best, science only gives us a mix of valid deductions (not proofs) and strong inductions (also not proofs). Re deductions, there will always be doubt in the premises and re induction, there will always be doubt in the method.
I'm not going to go into details here because it's not relevant to the armstrong doping debate, but you decided to bring it up anyway despite not understanding the arguments.
This is why I said the whole issue was a red herring. Those who argue that LA is clean aren't doing so on the basis that there are problems with establishing a formal proof in science, they're doing so on the basis that there are possibilities of questioning the inductive arguments that conclude that LA doped. E.g. the famed EPO sample - "could be lab contaminated".
That some posters retreat into "it's not proven", "we'll have to disagree" or "I guess we'll never know for certain" has more to do with them overplaying the significance of inductive gaps or of ignoring Occam's razor than it does of them bringing the epistemological status of science to the debate.
On a side note to this side note, there is a genuine tendency in other debates (e.g. evolution V creation) to undermine scientific validity in general (my belief system is of equal value to yours, science is just a belief system), Dawkins in particular gets hot under the collar about it. I suspect that BB has been influenced by this debate and sees parallels. The status of creationism in the US (particularly the South) leads me to think that BB has bundled the LA doping debate into something much bigger... His comments on the US I take as inductive proof of this ;-)Warning No formatter is installed for the format0 -
Excellent logical reasoning there.0
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I fully understand the nature of the debate, but I would still argue that the sort of epistemological doubts you refer to do not justify the sort of consequences some would like to draw from them. This applies to many philosophical problems. For example, would anyone take the 'doubts' raised by the idealism of people like Berkley or Kant seriously enough to act as though the external world did not have an independent existence?Abdoujaparov wrote:You mentioned assorted cranks who say epistemological doubts mean that we can't prove science, but there are in fact winning arguments that doubt scientific proof. At its best, science only gives us a mix of valid deductions (not proofs) and strong inductions (also not proofs). Re deductions, there will always be doubt in the premises and re induction, there will always be doubt in the method.
I would also argue that much of the problem arises from the old mistake of believing that the only sort of proof that exists is that which is to be found in mathematics and logic. I am sure that you are also aware of the sort of paradoxes that arise when people attempt to squeeze the real world into the narrow framework offered by deductive logic, as when dealing with counterfactual conditionals.
As I said earlier what I would like to see is for those who would argue that there is always room for 'doubt' in scientific truths to explain the nature of that doubt in relation to such specific facts as the Earth being approximately round, the Sun being at the centre of the Solar System, certain micro-organisms being the cause of disease and so forth. I would argue that in such cases it is almost irrational to argue that there is still room for doubt to exist. Also, attempting to side-step the issue by claiming something like the shape of the Earth is no longer a question of scientific theory but is evident from 'direct observation' fails as this raises issues such as the 'theory laden' nature of observation.
I would love to see you provide a 'winning argument' making clear the nature of the 'doubt' in such cases. Then again, perhaps you would accept that, in such cases, the 'doubts' arising from the problem of induction are, like Idealism, essentially 'philosophical' in nature, rather than being of real significance to the way we should view the world. 0 -
Yes, you are onto something there.No tA Doctor wrote:On a side note to this side note, there is a genuine tendency in other debates (e.g. evolution V creation) to undermine scientific validity in general (my belief system is of equal value to yours, science is just a belief system), Dawkins in particular gets hot under the collar about it. I suspect that BB has been influenced by this debate and sees parallels. The status of creationism in the US (particularly the South) leads me to think that BB has bundled the LA doping debate into something much bigger... His comments on the US I take as inductive proof of this ;-)
As I have said before, I take great issue with the post-modern, relativistic attitudes that have come to dominate society and 'education', especially in the US. I have found such attitudes to cause real problems when trying to teach critical thinking skills. For example, you will get a student who wants to write an essay on, say, how the pyramids were built. I will say 'OK, but take note of what I said about using credible sources'. Of course the essay will then be full of references to alien spaceships and so forth, and the student will take great offence if you mark them down for this as "Science proves nothing" and "This explanation is as valid as anyone else's".
As Allan Bloom wrote in "The closing of the American mind'.
Ultimately, the whole issue of relativism has much wider implications, as Orwell foresaw. To repost the quote I gave earlier:There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. If this belief is put to the test, one can count on the students' reaction: they will be uncomprehending. That anyone should regard the proposition as not self-evident astonishes them, as though he were calling into question 2 + 2 = 4 .
Orwell: "Looking Back on the Spanish War" (written 1942, published 1943), CE II, 296f."Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as 'the truth' exists. There is, for instance, no such thing as 'science'. There is only 'German science', 'Jewish science' etc. The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, 'It never happened' - well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five - well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs - and after our experiences of the last few years that is not a frivolous statement."
Sounds as though Orwell was right to be concerned:
http://mondediplo.com/2008/01/04scheherazadeA few days before the 2004 presidential election, Ron Suskind, a columnist who had been investigating the White House and its communications for years, wrote in The New York Times about a conversation he had with a presidential adviser in 2002. “The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community’, which he defined as people ‘who believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality’. I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors.. and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’ ”0 -
P.s. Speaking of Orwell, the danger of relativism was also a main theme of '1984'. (Note the similarities with the previous quote).
(O’ Brien). ‘Do you remember,’ he went on, ‘writing in your diary, ‘ “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four”?’
‘Yes,’ said Winston......
‘How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?’
‘Four.’
‘And if the party says that it is not four but five-than how many?’
‘Four.’
The word ended in a gasp of pain.......
‘You are a slow learner, Winston,’ said O’Brien gently.
‘How can I help it?’ he blubbered. ‘How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two make four.’
‘Sometimes Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all three at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane........
(Winston) ‘But how can you control matter?......You don’t even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death-...’
O’ Brien silenced him by a movement of the hand. ‘We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull.....There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation,- anything.....You must get rid of these ninteenth-century ideas about the laws of nature. We make the laws of nature.’
‘But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.’
What are the stars? said O’ Brien indifferently. ‘They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could block them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it’.0 -
Not a single star will be left in the night.
The night will not be left.
I will die and, with me,
the weight of the intolerable universe.
I shall erase the pyramids, the medallions,
the continents and faces.
I shall erase the accumulated past.
I shall make dust of history, dust of dust.
Now I am looking on the final sunset.
I am hearing the last bird.
I bequeath nothingness to no one.
The Suicide, JL Borges
Pure 'scientific' truth and pure 'interpretation' are both as useless as each other because by definition they can tell us nothing. Between the two poles lies what we call history.0 -
BikingBernie wrote:
I fully understand the nature of the debate, but I would still argue that the sort of epistemological doubts you refer to do not justify the sort of consequences some would like to draw from them. This applies to many philosophical problems. For example, would anyone take the 'doubts' raised by the idealism of people like Kant seriously enough to act as though the external world did not have an independent existence?Abdoujaparov wrote:You mentioned assorted cranks who say epistemological doubts mean that we can't prove science, but there are in fact winning arguments that doubt scientific proof. At its best, science only gives us a mix of valid deductions (not proofs) and strong inductions (also not proofs). Re deductions, there will always be doubt in the premises and re induction, there will always be doubt in the method.
I would also argue that much of the problem arises from the old mistake of believing that the only sort of proof that exists is that which is to be found in mathematics and logic. I am sure that you are also aware of the sort of paradoxes that arise when people attempt to squeeze the real world into the narrow framework offered by deductive logic, as when dealing with counterfactual conditionals.
As I said earlier what I would like to see is for those who would argue that there is always room for 'doubt' in scientific truths to explain the nature of that doubt in relation to such specific facts as the Earth being approximately round, the Sun being at the centre of the Solar System, certain micro-organisms being the cause of disease and so forth. I would argue that in such cases it is almost irrational to argue that there is still room for doubt to exist. Also, attempting to side-step the issue by claiming something like the shape of the Earth is no longer a question of scientific theory but is evident from 'direct observation' fails as this raises issues such as the 'theory laden' nature of observation.
I would love to see you provide a 'winning argument' making clear the nature of the 'doubt' in such cases. Then again, perhaps you would accept that, in such cases, the 'doubts' arising from the problem of induction are, like Kant's Idealism, essentially 'philosophical' in nature, rather than being of real significance to the way we should view the world.
You're arguing as if 'doubting x' equals 'believing the opposite of x'.
And if your big point which required reference to epistemology was 'just look at the evidence that the world is round' then you need to set your sights higher and name-drop less frequently.0 -
Always liked this quote myself
"The smaller the understanding of the situation, the more pretentious the form of expression.”0 -
And your 'winning argument' is?Abdoujaparov wrote:You're arguing as if 'doubting x' equals 'believing the opposite of x'.
And if your big point which required reference to epistemology was 'just look at the evidence that the world is round' then you need to set your sights higher and name-drop less frequently.
Then again, as my old philosophy lecturer used to like to say, 'If an answer can be found to a question, then the question wasn't a philosophical one'. 0 -
The winning arguments are so obvious that they're barely worth mentioning, but as you're pressing for one...how can you prove that you're not a brain in a vat that is being manipulated to think certain things?
This doubt is not as you claim a 'false position' and is not frivilous or the creation of a crank.
It might be irrelevant to science and maths as we use them, but it is certainly not a 'false position'.0 -
Er, you appear to have gone off on a tangent here. I was looking for your 'winning argument' which would compel me to admit that, due to the 'problem of induction', I must accept that the Earth may not, after all, be approximately round...Abdoujaparov wrote:The winning arguments are so obvious that they're barely worth mentioning, but as you're pressing for one...how can you prove that you're not a brain in a vat that is being manipulated to think certain things?
P.s. as to providing proof that I'm 'not a brain in a vat that is being manipulated to think certain things', could you explain what you mean by 'proof', given that you seem to be wedded to the idea that outside of logic, there is no such thing? (For what it's worth I feel that it can be shown that the sort of Idealism you refer to is untenable, not least because admitting to the existence of an independent, external reality is the most coherent explanation of the structure of our experiences).0 -
Abdoujaparov wrote:The winning arguments are so obvious that they're barely worth mentioning, but as you're pressing for one...how can you prove that you're not a brain in vat that is being manipulated to think certain things?
This doubt is not as you claim a 'false position' and is not frivilous or the creation of a crank.
It might be irrelevant to science and maths as we use them, but it is certainly not a 'false position'.
I keep my brain in vat. special vat
Now come on, back to biking,whats the longest wheelie youve ever done..0 -
My example does show that the earth may not be round.
But I guess you want me to use an argument that you think you can debunk.
Well, go on then. Try showing me that the inductive justification of induction is not circular.0 -
Only if I accept that I am brain in a vat being fed information is a tenable position, which I do not. Even if I accepted your position it does no more than side-step your central claim that the problem of induction demands that I cannot reasonably assert that the earth is approximately round.Abdoujaparov wrote:My example does show that the earth may not be round.
You are still approaching the issue from the wrong direction. If you cannot show that my claim that we must accept that the world is indeed round, regardless of the supposed implications of 'the problem of induction', is untenable, then it seems inescapable that you are probably working from false or irrelevant premises. Again, you also appear to be relying on a logical framework that has long been proved to be inadequate when it comes to determining the nature of scientific 'truth'.Abdoujaparov wrote:Try showing me that the inductive justification of induction is not circular.0 -
Btw, BB you're doing it again - saying that doubting the existence of the material world is the same as believing the material world does not exist. I'm not an idealist.
It's almost as if you're trying to construct an argument you think you can win rather than dealing with what I'm saying.0 -
Good, because such a position would be self-defeating. That is, you would be claiming that my conception of the Earth being approximately round exists only in my own consciousness. However, if that is the only place it exists, then my conception of it being round cannot be challenged as being incorrect as this is how I conceive it and no external reality can be invoked to challenge it.Abdoujaparov wrote:I'm not an idealist.
Now, put forward your 'winning argument' which would compel me to admit that, due to the 'problem of induction', I must accept that the Earth may not, after all, be approximately round. 0 -
First of all, why do I need to use the problem of induction? I've already proven that the earth may not be round by the brain in a vat example.
Secondly, the earth may not be round because 'proof' that it is round relies on induction which cannot be justified. Any attempt to justify induction relies on empirical evidence of previous inductions which means that you have to use induction to prove induction (the circular argument that I mentioned before).
There you go - two proofs for you. There is another one (the 'grue' example - heard of that one?), but that'll do for the time being.0 -
Personally, when confronted by philosophical 'proofs' that demand that I accept that what is demonstrably certain might in fact be false ('the Earth is approximately round', 'certain micro-organisms cause disease') I am led to question the validity / premises / relevance of those 'proofs'. It seems you prefer to accept the absurd.
Whilst I accept that the problem of induction means that we must be cautious when claiming that we have established a scientific truth, there are still many ways to gauge the degree of confidence that can be placed in any inductive conclusion. These range from a probabilistic estimate of its validity based on the number of supporting observations made to its predictive power, the range of phenomena it explains, the degree to which it coheres with other established 'truths' at different levels of explanation and as such is supported by them, the degree to which its premises have been subject to tests that could have provided for its disconfirmation and so forth.
It can also be argued that the problem of induction does not in itself prove that true scientific facts cannot be established, only that there may be a degree of uncertainty as to which are true and which are not, an uncertainty which can itself be reduced or even removed by the application of the sort of tests I note above.
Anyhow, I am not yet ready to accept that the 'problem of induction' means that the model of the world induced from the sciences of physics, chemistry, biology, evolutionary theory, geology, astronomy, genetics and all the rest can no more claim to be true than that derived from, for example, some book of old Hebrew fairy stories. Given that way scientific 'truths' compliment and support each other it would be a statistical coincidence of incomprehensible proportions if the underlying model were false.0 -
Made it.
Sorry everyone for helping turn this thread into what it became.0 -
BikingBernie wrote:My life is far from 'sad'.
With your Lance ramblings here there is only one conclusion we can assume.
You are sad.0 -
Ohhh, Pro Race evokes Karl Popper.0
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he/she's so far off topic , how about the regulars work together on flagging, PM and all of us do at same time to bring it to mod attention, to stop this character totally derailing threads with deep philosophy or political speeches. Not suggesting muzzle the person re the rider in question, just put him back in his box a bit, confine him to relevant threads.0
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I don't think so Dave_1, one of the interesting aspects of the Armstrong allegations is the divisive nature of the argument and the role of faith, deduction and evidence within this. No other rider attracts such scrutiny or manages to evoke the dilemma of induction and heuristics.
You can just click on other threads if it's not for you. The world "Armstrong" in the title should be a clue 0 -
Kléber wrote:I don't think so Dave_1, one of the interesting aspects of the Armstrong allegations is the divisive nature of the argument and the role of faith, deduction and evidence within this. No other rider attracts such scrutiny or manages to evoke the dilemma of induction and heuristics.
You can just click on other threads if it's not for you. The world "Armstrong" in the title should be a clue
+1
Personally I like "off topic", it's often interesting to see how a thread develops into something entirely different, like a game of Chinese whispers.Warning No formatter is installed for the format0
