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# I don't buy Russell's teapot.
Just because there's no proof of absence of something doesn't mean I believe in it, either.
(I helped save b3ta! Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 24 May 2010, 12:32, archived)
# But it's a matter of entitlement.
Intellectual good taste demands that, to the greatest extent possible, we ought only to believe that which we have a sufficient reason to believe. There is no such reason to believe in the existence of a deity.

Occam's razor, and all that. (Except that Occam was a bit blunt on that front.)
(I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 24 May 2010, 12:35, archived)
# but there's no such evidence to the contrary either...
and now we're back to square one
(likeajackhammer, Mon 24 May 2010, 12:36, archived)
# But the point is that there's no need for there to be evidence to the contrary.
I don't need to produce evidence that there's no teapot orbiting between Earth and Mars; I don't need to be able to produce evidence of the absence of pixies from my back yard.

If you want to entertain the possibility of a thing's existence, then the burden of proof lies on you.

(Consider an analogy with a courtroom: it isn't that the prosecution has to demonstrate guilt and the defence has to demonstrate innocence - rather, all the defence has to do is show that the case hasn't been made. Something similar applies here.)
(I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 24 May 2010, 12:41, archived)
# Entertaining the possibility and belief are two very different things.
Entertaining the possibilty is something every scientist must be able to do in order to progress.
(I helped save b3ta! Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 24 May 2010, 12:59, archived)
# But there're still some claims and sets of claims that don't merit being entertained.
So I tend to agree with you - but there has to be a plausibility criterion. A scientist at CERN who entertained the possibility that mass arises because of a fight between red and blue pixies would be a strange creature indeed, just because there's no reason even to entertain the (merely logical) possibility.
(I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 24 May 2010, 13:11, archived)
# If he said red or blue quarks, it would be fine though, right?
We come down once again to a matter of taste. And as you know, everyone except me has awful taste.
(I helped save b3ta! Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 24 May 2010, 13:14, archived)
# Well, provided he has independent evidence for the existence of quarks,
can provide testable predictions, and so on, he can call them what the hell he likes. But that's not the same as picking any old toss from the back of his mind and insisting that we take the possibility seriously.
(I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 24 May 2010, 13:18, archived)
# you're fast becoming white noise
(likeajackhammer, Mon 24 May 2010, 13:22, archived)
# surely if you want to believe something, then you can
there is no burden of anything on anyone until you start trying to get others to believe?
(I helped save b3ta! doog Don't read this., Mon 24 May 2010, 13:03, archived)
# Nope.
In my more belligerent moods, I think that there's a duty to avoid false beliefs; but even in my more concessive moods, I'd deny that there's a right to hold false ones. And this means that I think we ought to be prepared to ditch any and all our current beliefs if the evidence and arguments head that way.
(I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 24 May 2010, 13:08, archived)
# "Intellectual good taste"?! Hahahahahaha
I see.

Who are the guardians of what is and what isn't "good taste", and how do they make their decisions?
(I helped save b3ta! Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 24 May 2010, 12:37, archived)
# you ask me...
I tell you
(likeajackhammer, Mon 24 May 2010, 12:39, archived)
# Hahahaha
(I helped save b3ta! Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 24 May 2010, 12:41, archived)
# scientists, academics, researchers
people who spend their whole professional lives thinking about the world around them and how it works.
(benito vaselini no not that one, Mon 24 May 2010, 12:45, archived)
# Meh.
It's a matter of keeping things tidy, in terms of metaphysical parsimony and explanatory efficiency (which I take to be related) - that is, not believing in factors for which there is no independent evidence, and choosing the less complicated explanation of observed phenomena over the more complicated.

It's really not unusual to hear scientists talking in terms of beauty or elegance when it comes to explaining phenomena: I'm talking in the same sort of way.
(I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 24 May 2010, 12:45, archived)
# Beauty being based entirely on personal taste and perception.
(I helped save b3ta! Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 24 May 2010, 12:57, archived)
# Beauty here being a portmanteau for efficiency, predictive power, and so on.
For sure, that a simply hypothesis is better than a complicated one might be thought of as unargued; but I think it's more of an axiom. If you abandon it, science very quickly becomes impossible. I think you're therefore entititled to accept it; it's possible that you're even obliged to do so, on pain of no longer being a scientist.

That still doesn't indicate anything like equivalence with supernaturalism.
(I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 24 May 2010, 13:21, archived)
# Ah, well - if we're doing portmanteaus, then Shirley "It is God's will" is just a quicker way of saying
"Theribald-Johnson & co 1937 study of predictive skin disorder concluding that dermatitis leads to engorged neuralgia, from which we can extrapolate thusly ... "
(I helped save b3ta! Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 24 May 2010, 13:26, archived)
# If everyone understands that that's what's meant by the phrase "God's will",
then there might be some mileage to the idea.

But I have a hunch that the overwhelming majority of people who use the term "God's will" think that that's all there is to it; they don't, after all, have a great reputation for making use of respected dermatological journals...
(I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 24 May 2010, 13:29, archived)
# Hunch, eh?
Sounds unscientific to me.
(I helped save b3ta! Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 24 May 2010, 13:32, archived)
# Meh
hunch hypothesis testable by any anthropologist that can be arsed.
(I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 24 May 2010, 13:44, archived)