(The short version: Read this first) Re: Debate Format

Jeff Epler jepler@inetnebr.com
Mon, 15 Feb 1999 12:42:41 -0600 (00919125761, 19990215124241.B3104@craie.inetnebr.com) 

On Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 05:47:39PM -0000, Matthew Bell wrote:

> I would consider such a line of argument as a fallacious

> non-sequitur. To quote Farrell Till, ''...Logicians have long

> recognised that the absence of negative evidence does not constitute

> positive evidence just as the absence of positive evidence does not

> constitute negative evidence'. (TSR, Volume Nine, Number Four, Where is

> the Objective Evidence).' It appears to me that this would be saying

> that the lack of positive evidence for Mary and the virgin birth does

> not constitute negative evidence, which is exactly what your argument

> seeks to do.


Perhaps further discussion of the idea of "disproof", "negative evidence",
and "burden of proof" would be instructive, but I hope that before we do
that you will agree with my basic point, which I will now repeat:  You
agree, as you wrote in an earlier message that
	If the NT documents are trustworthy records then Mary, Joseph
	etc have historical verification"
and you must acknowledge that any line of reasoning that would cause
someone to deny that "Mary, Joseph etc have historical verification" would
entail the denial that "the NT documents are trustworthy records".

Now that this matter of purely symbolic logic has been dispensed with, I'll
address my reasoning that "Mary, Joseph etc have historical verification"
should be denied not only because of possession of negative evidence, but
that if you deny it only because you lack positive evidence you are
probably just acting in the same way you do every day with other
unsupported statements.

So perhaps I will have to, on this occasion, disagree with Farrell.
In any case, it is slightly different to say that "absence of positive
evidence constitutes negative evidence" and what I'm saying.

Maybe this is really subtle, so I'll try again.

There are millions of statements out there that one could make which
have no evidence for them.  For instance, "To increase my health,
I ought to eat rubber tires " (are they "tyres" where you live?), "If
a woman douches with pepsi after intercourse she won't get pregnant",
"George Washington had three nipples", and any of countless others.

Now, I haven't gone on an extensive information gathering hunt for even
these three examples, let alone all the others (though, of course, in
writing these three I have reflected upon them and continue to believe
that it's extremely unlikely that there is any positive evidence for them)
I act as though they are false.  To me, that would include denying A in
statements like "if A then B", with B from the above set.

Besides, the mere fact that "virgin births are biologically impossible for
human beings in modern times" and "the biological nature of human beings
has not changed significantly in the last 4000 years" are both accepted
facts (do you deny them?) would lead us to conclude that virgin births
were biologically impossible for people in the last 4000 years.  Thus,
negative evidence is trivially presented in this case, rendering your whole
argument based on the quote from Farrell moot.  Or, one more argument,

1. A human woman cannot have a child without the presence of the
	sperm of a human male.
2. Mary was a human woman.
3. Therefore, Mary could not have had a child without the presence
	of the sperm of a human male. (1,2)

You should recognize the form of "socrates is a man", so that leaves
only to dispute the truth of the two premises .. We're waiting.  Like,
was she an alien, or what?

Jeff
-- 
\/ http://www.freshmeat.net/                     Jeff Epler jepler@inetnebr.com
Political T.V. commercials prove one thing: some candidates can tell
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