On Sep 8, 7:58�pm, backspace <
stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The book (WITTGENSTEIN�S BEETLE AND OTHER CLASSIC THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS
> p. 28) says that Darwin changed his theory. Wrong, he didn't change
> his formulation but changed the method by which
> the acquisition of attributes occur.
a distinction without a difference, the method is part of the theory.
>I other words the process of
> speciation is being assumed in the conclusion.
Not in any meaningful sense. Speciation is what the theory explains.
> Because his argument
> wedged between his premise and conclusion is a claim of logic , it
> neither refutes nor verifies any possible arguments linking the
> premise to the conclusion. Thus his conclusion is a restatement of the
> premise and thus reasons in a circle which is a different concept than
> begging the question.
You have failed to give any evidence for the "because" and the thus
part - that is you make your mere assertions look like arguments, They
aren't . and you keep ignoring the various examples given to you that
simply falsify your claim that in the section you quoted, or anywhere
else in the ToE, unfalsifiable claims are made.
On the last point, whether circular arguments are different from
begging the question:Aristotle seems to have thought so, but the
passage is not easy to interpret (and he may have simply been
confused) most modern treatise on argumentation theory treat them as
more or less the same.
> Burkhard explained to me and the way I understood him is that circ.
> reasoning is where there was an *expectation* of either an argument or
> series of arguments demonstrating how the conclusion follows from the
> premise.
Really? I must have been very drunk, as this does not ring a bell and
sounds extremely muddled. A circular argument is simply an argument
that fails to be convincing as it assumes the very thing it tries to
prove.
>IIn the absence of any such argument or arguments we rule out,
> such as claims of logic, we have despite the length or complexity of
> the intermediate steps between premise and conclusion,
> merely the restatement of the premise as the conclusion: reasoning in
> a circle. �Such an argument might be of any length of complexity and
> containing claims of logic or rhetorical tautologies violates our
> *expectation*.
>
> This leads to confusing tautologies with circular reasoning, they are
> not the same thing as Wilkins pointed out to me.
They are indeed not the same thing, though related. All circular
arguments are tautologies but not all tautologies are circular
arguments.
>(Wilkins
> independently of me was able to identify Butler as the first person to
> recognize DArwin's tautological reasoning, without actually using the
> term *tautology*.) �He doesn't come out more strongly against this
> logical fallacy because
.. there isn't any.
<snip ad hominem>
> Thus we are stuck with two types of academics
> 1) Those with a cognitive deficiency who can't grasp that Evolutionary
> theory reduces to a gaggle of truisms and tautologies between premise
> and conclusion, enabling �circular reasoning . (Dana Tweedie,
> Kermit,Dawkins, Dennett, Jerry Coyne, primary school students don't
> seem to have the intellectual capacity to understand what I wrote on
> the Wikipedia tautology page).
There was once a driver on the motorway. he hears on the radio a
traffic announcement: drive carefully on the Route 66, an idiot is
driving on the wrong side of the road. "One?". the driver said, "There
are thousands of them!".
Nobody understands what you wrote on the wikipedia tautology page,
because what you wrote is unintelligible.
>Daniel Dennett thinks that natural
> selection is the best idea anybody ever �had: which begs the question-
> what is a natural selection?
No it doesn't . It may raise that question in the mind of someone who
does not know what the term means, but that is merely a reflection on
the level of education of the person that the argument is addressed
at, not the argument itself.
>Meaning is only expressed at the level
> of
> sentences , thus the term natural selection is used a contracted
> shorthand or metaphor for a sentence defined elsewhere - what is this
> sentence?
>
I've given you a perfectly good definition several times, you ignored
it every single time. Doesn't make it go away though.
> 2) Those who do understand this and also the need by many in academia
> keep the tautological farce going in the absence of an actual theory
> that could explain how nothing begets something or how unconsciousness
> begets consciousness, non-design design or chaos order. (Burkhard,
> Wilkins, Harshman, Chomsky, Fodor)
>
> On Wikipedia I explained the concept of a rhetorical tautology as
> defeating the *expectation* that an argument of various length or
> complexity must not �guarantee the truth of the proposition.
Well, if you really tried to say that, no wonder people keep laughing
at you, It is the very definition of a deductively valid argument that
the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the definition.
I doubt there is a valid category of "rhetorical tautology". There a
are certain rhetorical figures of speech such as pleonasms. They are
just a stylistic device and have nothing to do with the validity or
lack thereof of an argument.
> We don't
> want the truth of the proposition guaranteed nor the premise restated
> as the conclusion because our *expectation* is for falsifiable
> arguments.
>
You don't understand what a valid argument is, and you don't
understand what it means that a theory is falsifiable.
premise 1: Whenever two bodies interact by exerting force on each
other, these forces are equal in magnitude, but opposite in direction.
premise 2: Earth and moon interact by exerting force on each other
Conclusion: These two forces between earth and moon are equal in
magnitude.
A deductively valid argument using modus ponens. The conditional truth
of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion. And the
conclusion is indeed entailed in the premise (because you can rewrite
every universally quantified sentence as a mere concatenation of
"and" sentences)
Does this mean Newton's theory is unfalsifiable, or that our mini
theory here about earth and moon is unfalsifibale? Of course not. It
can be falsified by showing that either premise 1 or premise 2 are
factually wrong.
> (I need to read up on a few journal papers exploring the difference
> between circ. reasoning and begging the question. I think I have the
> difference approximately figured out)
That I would doubt. Aristotle seems to have made a distinction between
them, but I don't know of anybody who follows him on this. Ultimatly a
question of terminology and not very interesting, today both terms are
used synonymously.
Aristotle may have had something like this in mind:
"begging the question" is logically fallacious, because it makes a
factual claim look as if it were self evidence or a tautology, whereas
circular arguments are logically valid, just don't tell you anything.
2 examples:
a)
Peter: I am the greatest man on earth
John: Why should I believe this?
Peter: because I am the greatest man on earth
Begging the question, because the argument simply restates the point
under discussion. This according to Aristotle is legitimate only if
the point is self evidence, for instance if it id a tautology. From a
logical perspective, tautologies can indeed be derived from the empty
set of premises {} |- A v -A
Begging the question is logically invalid in this analysis because it
has the form {} |- A, where A is a contingent claim.
b)
Peter: I am the greatest man on earth
John: Why should I believe you
Peter: Great man are born to great mothers. It is part of the concept
of greatness that a great person never lies. I'm the greatest man on
earth. Therefore my mother is the greatest mother on earth. She said
I'm the greatest. Since it is part of the concept of greatness that
you don't lie, her answer must be true
Therefore I'm truly the greatest
Circular argument, because the conclusion is on of the premises that
triggers a chain of other inferences which then lead to the
conclusion. Logically valid, because it instantiates a valid
argumentation scheme, but does not prove the point under contention.
It seems as if Aristotle wanted to keep the two apart, but in modern
parlance, there is no difference between the to concepts.
> Raising the question means that when all relevant observers agree that
> the conclusion follows logically from a premise, that additional
> questions are raised in such a manner that the premise isn't in
> dispute.
>
Eh, what? The above makes hardly any sense. Raising a question is
simply a request for more information, or asking for support for a
premise. It is a reflection of the knowledge/beliefs of the person you
try to convince, not a feature of the argument.
Peter: I'm the greatest man on earth
John: Why should I believe that
Peter; because my mother said so!
John: Fair enough, but why should I take her word for this?
Peter's answer raises the question why his premise ("what my mother
says is true") should be accepted. Logically, it is always possible
to query an answer further and to require additional evidential
support. Whether this is rational, advisable or helpful is another
question. Very little children do it of course all the time - asking
"why" to whatever answer is given - the result is eventually a
"because I say so". Amongst adults, raising the question often betrays
simply ignorance on the side of the person who raises the question:
Peter: Why do you put a French dictionary in the travel bag?
John: Because we go to Paris
Peter: Why do you need a French dictionary in Paris?
John: because Paris is in France
Peter: oh, I did not know that
Or it can show an inability to focus on the problem at hand - if we
want to describe the current residential campaigns in the US, we
probably do not need to go back to the Celtic settlement of England,
even though there is a chain of "why" questions that could lead us
there.
> Begging the question means that a conclusion is stated without stating
> the assumption or that the assumption or premise isn't clear and any
> possible arguments linking the two.
No, that would be an enthymeme
> It isn't a fallacy to assume a
> premise in a conclusion, if what is being assumed is made clear.
> Begging the question, circular reasoning , raising the question and
> tautologies are different concepts.
Depends. In modern logic, begging the question and circular reasoning
are the same, and both are tautologies, but not all tautologies are
circular reasoning.
Raising the question is the odd one out and has nothing to do with the
others.
> Darwin tried to show by what mechanism the acquisition of attributes
> took place. Problem is that the very premise is in dispute by observer
Which premise would that be? And is it reasonable for the observer to
dispute that premise, or does he e.g. contradict himself in doing so?
> Fleeming Jenkin who made the point athttp://
archive.org/stream/cu31924012236109#page/n465/mode/2up
> there should be
> millions of intermediate fossils, which there aren't . This is an
> independent issue from any possible mechanism, if we were to assume
> the premise despite the lack of transitional fossils.
That again does not make any sense. The lack of transitional fossil
could be a possible falsification of the theory, IF it predicted that
these should be found. That means, it is a possible implication of the
theory. In this case, what we know, and what we learned since, about
the way in which animals fossilise, we can show that having millions
of intermediate fossils is not an implication of the theory.
>
> If the premise of speciation is outright rejected, then by logic no
> questions are raised as to a possible mechanism that would have
> allowed such speciation either .
Don;t know what you mean with "the premise of speciation". If it is
something like: "speciation exists" then yes, if you don't accept that
premise, then for you, the question on how speciation occurs is not
raised. However, as there is very good evidence that speciation does
occur, rejecting it outright simply shows a disregard for the
evidence.
Punk-Eek(Gould and Aristotle) or
> gradualism(Darwin , Dawkins). Both Aristotle, Darwin, Lucretius,
> Empedocles, Democritus and Dawkins formulated their propositions
> unfalsifiably, which by the precepts of falsificationism guarantees
> that their conclusions are non-sequiturs.
You confuse issues of logic with issues of empirical methodology.
The issue of whether a theory is falsifiable or not has no implication
on the logical status of its conclusions, and in particular does not
make them non sequiturs - otherwise, every mathematical proof would be
a non-sequitur.
>
> If we assume for sake of argument the premise(disputed) that there was
> speciation, then it raises the question: by what mechanism. Darwin's
> formulation was done in such a manner that he assumes a disputed
> premise obfuscated in a thicket of claims of logic, so that his
> premise is merely restated as the conclusion without falsifiable
> justification and thus reasoned in a circle.
>
So you claim, and as was shown over and over again, you are plain
wrong. I alone have given you more than 10 possible observations that
can fasify the theorym so your claim is falsified.
> For example in South-Africa ISP support staff were quick to console
> irate customers over the phone who have reached their 3Gig Internet
> cap that most of their other customers never use more than 3Gigs: this
> begs the question why aren't the others using more than 3Gigs? Because
> there is no point in watching youtube videos half-way, they limited
> their Internet activity to browsing and email and because most people
> only have time to read not more than 500Meg(I made this up) of html
> pages , their data usage remained low.
>
> Larry Moranhttp://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2012/09/john-wilkins-defends-philosophy-...� wrote:
>
> ''......Begging the question is a logical fallacy in which an argument
> is assumed to be true without evidence other than the argument
> itself. It doesn't mean to raise the question. ....''
>
> This is actually the fallacy of circular reasoning and not begging the
> question.
Moran is correct wrt current usage.