Jay, can you clarify the following? You said this:

Do you see how that works? As long as you don't ask for specifics, I can say, "But X could be faked," for any value of X. That's why we place the burden of proof on affirmative rebuttals in order to present and discuss the specifics. If you can simply cast abstract doubt on something and disprove it, you can disprove everything -- even the bleedin' obvious. So that's why it's not a useful method of proof.

That shows that just saying "but X could be faked" does not constitute a useful method of proof. But in one of your other statements, where you argue against the possibility of conclusively proving something authentic, you seem to be using this not-so-useful method of proof:

You can never prove conclusively that something is real. It may, for example, simply be a forgery that's too good for you yet to detect.

Note that I am not trying to indirectly argue that we can conclusively prove something authentic here--perhaps we can, perhaps we cannot. Does the conclusion "you can never prove conclusively that something is real" warrant a more robust argument behind it than "it could be faked"?

I think you get into likelihoods (sp) at that point. For example, how likely is it that the document was forged using methods we cannot detect yet? I would put those likelihoods at under 1%. I think that allows us to, in practical terms, ignore that possibility.

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Don't listen to him, Jay--keep on making your posts just as long as they need to be--they're about my favorite online reading. :-)

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Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Roger wrote:

So the fact that the dust didnt billow isn't proof, because it could have been faked.

This may be a problem with the "laundry list" of proofs you are trying to assemble. It seems when they each stand separately, isolated from any context, they are more prone to have doubts cast upon them by a conspiracy theorist. Any good historical investigation, or murder case, etc. tries to tie all the points of evidence together into a coherent narrative--the story of what happened. In such a context, the pieces of evidence do not stand isolated, but mutually support each other.

As an example of what I have in mind, here is the opening paragraph John Locke wrote for his FAQ on the JFK assassination. I am not bringing this up to argue about the assassination. It is just an example I have on hand for one way "Lone Nutters" have argued against conspiracy theorists. Here you can see the pieces of evidence fit together into a coherent account, and conversely, you can see how such an account of Oswald's actions can explain all the pieces of evidence:

I am only throwing out a suggestion here. Perhaps a narrative of any sort may be turn out be longer than what a casual website reader would likely read.

Risking making this post longer than Jay's, there is a good point Jay brought up about conspiracy theorist's arguments: They almost always resort to casting doubts on the official record. They practically never try to offer a coherent account of what supposedly really happened, to tie all their anomalies together and explain them with a single account. It is important, I think, to point out that casting doubt on one case, the case for Apollo, does not automatically build support for, and supply the details of, an alternate case, the case for conspiracy.

By presenting a laundry list of anomalies, and by luring people like us into debunking them, we, in a way, play into the CT's hands. We implicitly accept that the matter is to be decided by trying to explain anomalies presented by the CT and that the authenticity of Apollo rests soley on our ability to provide such explanations.

Then who the hell is going to be kicking all your a**es in the pool in Athens?

P.

That shows that just saying "but X could be faked" does not constitute a useful method of proof.

Right. You're suggesting an affirmative rebuttal without shouldering the accompanying burden of proof. It's useless in the hypothetical, but indispensible if it can be actually proved. An alibi is an affirmative rebuttal.

You can never prove conclusively that something is real. It may, for example, simply be a forgery that's too good for you yet to detect.

Here we have to look at our inability to falsify a proposition. Is the proposition true? Or are our efforts falling short of what's required? We don't know.

This is the justification of a presumption, not necessarily a method of proof. But if we apply a full battery of tests that fail to falsify authenticity, we may choose to make the inductive leap and say that it is authentic. But we may not; and we are left simply with the presumption and all the uncertainty that goes with a presumption. It becomes a "forever tentative" conclusion, because we may at some future time find a means for falsifying it.

Does the conclusion "you can never prove conclusively that something is real" warrant a more robust argument behind it than "it could be faked"

We're simply acknowledging the ambiguity of the situation in which we fail to falsify. How do we explain the inability to falsify? We must acknowledge that two possible explanations exist for that inability: we are not trying hard enough, or the proposition really is true.

That's the price of the presumption. We have the luxury of presuming authenticity and avoiding a staggering burden of proof for it, but the downside of that having a conclusion of authenticity that is forever tentative. It may have a slim inductive leap, but the leap never goes away.

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Clavius Moon Base

Last week I gave a talk to Year 11 boys at my old school, in my capacity as a member of the Canberra Skeptics. The two topics I covered in my talk were the Moon Hoax and Homeopathy. As it turned out, the first part of the talk was a bit wasted, because well over 90% of the boys believed the landings were genuine.

Anyway, near the end of the talk I listed half a dozen alternate medical treatments which lack good proof of efficacy, such as homeopathy, acupuncture and reiki. (I don't want to get into a debate about this; let's just say the case for their efficacy is not yet made).

During the Q&A session, one of the boys asked me whether I had tried these treatments, and if not, how could I write them off. Unfortunately, I couldn't give him as good an answer as I wished. What I wanted to say to him was something like this:

You can't expect absolute and personal proof for everything, because you can't be an expert on everything. At some point, you've got to accept that someone else is going to have to do the testing for you, and accept what they determine. The key to this is the choice of the person who is going to do that testing.

In the case of the Moon Hoax, the people we rely on to test these claims are the geologists who examined the Apollo rocks, and the engineers who worked at the tracking stations who transmitted to and received from the astronauts. None of these people has raised any doubts, so it's reasonable to use rocks and radio signals as positive evidence for the reality of Apollo.

You're right about the Oz need for food being a hoax. Instead you folks live on Vegemite (well, with a little toast and butter, of course).

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vegemite is disgusting
as is promite and marmite whichg are basically the same crap :-?

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South Africa?

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

I've never seen people labeled "Aussies" eating in movies. All they are able to do seems to be holding beer cans...

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During the Q&A session, one of the boys asked me whether I had tried these treatments, and if not, how could I write them off....
You can't expect absolute and personal proof for everything, because you can't be an expert on everything.

And this, unfortunately, is the only pillar that homeopathy has. There is anecdotal evidence that it works, so some people put their faith in it.

There is nothing different about testing homeopathy than testing surgery 'n' pills. The key in each case is proper empirical controls. This is how we can say that a particular remedy is likely to be effective, regardless of what tradition that remedy comes from. The lack of rigorous controls in these cases is the problem, not that researchers are predisposed one way or the other.

The advocates of homeopathy want you to try it yourself because they want you to anecdotally prove to yourself that it works for you. And that's why they don't approve of the methods of clinical trials.

People often ask me why I bother trying to "correct" people's modes of thinking. They say that these beliefs are "harmless" and that I should just live and let live.

Unfortunately I don't agree with that philosophy. First, ineffectual remedies -- be they rattles and raindances or quack science -- are not harmless. They encourage people to spend time and money on remedies which have no worth, all the while allowing their conditions to worsen.

Second, our society benefits from critical thinking. Fully a third of our government is based on the premise of jury trials in which individual citizens sit in direct judgment over important matters of governance. This is democracy at its most nuts-and-bolts level. The people who sit in judgment must be equipped to weigh arguments and judge rationally according to facts and sound logic, otherwise we'll have chaos.

And finally, we have to consider that there are people out there acting deliberately to deceive us. We live in a world of scams and snake oil, and having our substance robbed from us in return for empty promises or fear, uncertainty, and doubt, is not productive nor healthy.

The key to this is the choice of the person who is going to do that testing.

And the method by which it is tested.

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Clavius Moon Base

Jay, don't be so quick to write off homeopathic remedies. A lot of clean water has been known to expedite many recoveries.

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Freedom For Fission A breath of fresh Iodine-131

As have placebos. :-)

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

My wife says she's been to Australia.

My wife says that she is always right. *

Ergo, Australia exists. (I dare not argue :-?)

*(Our running joke...she's always right and I know everything)

Further proof of Autralia exsisting:

I have just finished a can of Fosters... Actually three. It makes the water in the toilet go clockwise, therefore it is from someplace on Earth that is below the equater.

Having sampled beer from just about every where I can say that Fosters tastes like nothing I've ever had before and as I've never been to Australia, it must be from there!

See?

(note to all those who wonder why the Australians always seem to be so willing to poke fun at themselves - drink enough Fosters and you will do the same!)

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No one drinks Fosters here in Australia.. in fact you would be lucky to even be able to buy it. We just export it. it tastes like crap compared to the stuff we do drink here.

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Faith: Not wanting to know what is true

But "Fosters is Australian for beer", at least that's what they say on the telly, and the telly never lies. 8-[ #-o