From: gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Vatican Finds Galileo 'Not Guilty'
Date: 17 Nov 92 19:41:48 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX

In article <1992Nov16.200022.19896@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> jcopelan@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (The One and Only) writes:
>In article <1992Nov16.162540.24184@news.cs.brandeis.edu> aaron@binah.cc.brandeis.edu writes:
>>
>>In the past few decades, scientists have observed evidence for universal
>>expansion which leads to the Big Bang model for cosmology.  This model predicts
>>the existence of the microwave background which has been observed so that
>>there is evidence for the model.  Now suppose a hypothetical god actually 
>>created the universe 10,000 years ago and created it such that the universe
>>appeared to have evolved from a Big Bang event.  Does this change the
>>observations or the fact that the Big Bang model explains well the observations?
>>No.  The universe still appears to have evolved from a Big Bang event 15
>>billion years ago (actually somewhere between 10 and 20 billion) and is
>>nicely modeled by the theory.  Lest this become like the discussion I've been
>>having with Mr. Copelan, I must stress that I'm not advocating any
>>particular religious view on the creation (the god I mention is hypothetical).
>
>But the question remains, why would one make this supposition?
>
>You may have missed his point on Occam's Razor.  You have provided two
>explanations of the universe, one with God and one without.  Both are 
>possibilities, but unless there is some compelling reason, logic justifies
>the one without God.
>
>Jim CopelanD
>
>-- 
>
>What we really need to do to bring peace to the middle-east
>is to get the Jews together with the Muslims
>and teach them to act like good Christians.

Occam's razor slashers are at it again.  Occam's razor is not in itself
capable of arbitrating the truth between two alternative explanations.
It is nothing but a crib, a methodological indicator for the best likely
outcome of a path of investigation.  It has never been proven nor can
it be proven.  It is really a generalization based on observation, wherein
experience tends to show that the simplest solution holds up better than
the complex one.

It states dogmatically that of two hypotheses, both of which save all 
the observed appearances, the simplest one is identical with the truth,
whereas the more complex one is false.  This is a dogmatic assertion that
has a great deal of appeal, but it can only be dogmatically applied and
it rests only on its own testimony to its validity.

So, the logic that justifies the explanation of a universe without God
is valid as deductive logic based on the unproven assumption that 
Occam's razor is valid in this case and on the assumption that this 
model can in fact account for all phenomena in the universe.

I see a clock with the hands moving around.  You say, it is obviously due
to a clock movement inside it that someone wound up.  I say that, no, there
could be a midget inside there turning the hands.  Occam's razor would,
I assume, argue in favor of the clock movement.  When we open it up and
in this case discover that there really is a midget, is Occam's razor thereby
disproven?  No, because it is unprovable in the first place.  You could 
argue the other way, with Occam slicing away the clock movement -- which 
he would have in the 13th century, before there were any clocks.  If I were
to show you the very first clock and explain how a clock movement works and
everything that goes into making it, you might well say, Occam's razor
compels me to reject this overly complex hypothesis. Obviously, there is
a little man in there that turns the hands around.

Another example.  A man is seen to fall from a tree, crushing his skull.
You rush in and discover that he is dead.  The simplest explanation is 
that he was killed by the fall, and Occam's razor would lead you to favor 
that explanation. But in this case, he actually had a heart attack and 
died instantly, after which he fell on his head and crushed his skull.
Occams' razor is not capable of arbitrating the truth of the matter.
OK, so now we do an autopsy and discover that he really did die of a
heart attack. The man was 75 years old and had a heart condition. 
Once again, Occam's razor tells us that he had a heart attack in the normal
course of develoment of his heart condition.  A good initial hypothesis.
But in this case, he actually had taken a minute quantity of poison which
causes heart failure.  And so on.

At best Occam's razor is an excuse not to investigate further.  But with
God, you have the problem that he must be at least as complex as the
universe he created, and that includes the complexity of your own
logic.  In this sense you can't get out of God, which makes the usual
kind of investigation difficult.  But why start with trying to find a
unified explanation of the universe in the first place?  Isn't that 
a bit overly ambitious for advocates of either side?  It might even
be more fruitful to investigate the lesser gods, i.e. angels and archangels,
rather than try from the outset to grasp the whole cosmos in your hand.
Even better still would be to see if you can find in your own self evidence
of a reality of being that is not the product of physical substance and
forces.

Gerry Palo (73237.2006@compuserve.com)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc