[lisper]

> science can’t comment on the “divine inspiration” claim

It certainly can. It can point out that there is no evidence that any human writing is divinely inspired, and so claims of divine inspiration are almost certainly false.

[chickenimprint]

See, there's the problem. You called it almost certainly false, but what are the criteria of truth?

Science uses induction as a measure, meaning it presupposes that we have faith in the proposition that something will happen again because it has happened in the past. That would be akin to claiming to be immortal, because every time someone died, it wasn't you. With a little additional information, such as the recognition that you are an animal and that most animals seem to have not been immortal in the past, a good hypothesis would be that you will die, but how can you be sure that you're not the first immortal one? It might seem silly, but how can we be certain that the entirety of physics in the universe is not milliseconds from unraveling, that we're not a metaphorical barrel at the crest of a waterfall without knowing?

In epistemology, only logical truths are certain, anything else is an attempt to put a confidence rating on a proposition, be it through science or religion. Neither can reach 100%, but both can certainly be 0%. There aren't even objective measures for such confidence ratings, statistical modelling is the best we have.

The scientific method explicitly excludes unfalsifiable claims from its purview. If you have ever argued with a religious person, you will realize how easily deflected the argument is, that there is no evidence for divine inspiration. You could mention billions of recorded scientific findings that point toward a material world without supernatural events and still be rebuked by "So what? That doesn't mean it's untrue. You can't disprove that it happened that one time."

I'm not saying that science is a pointless endeavor, just that it can never be an objective measure of truth.

[lisper]

> Science uses induction as a measure

No, it doesn't. This is a common misconception, but it is 100% wrong. Science is the business of finding the best explanations that account for all observations.

One of the consequences of this methodology is that it turns out that all known observable phenomena can be described by fairly simple mathematical laws that appear to remain constant over time. But science does not assume this.

[chickenimprint]

>Science is the business of finding the best explanations that account for all observations.

This is exactly what induction means. Even your wording is almost identical to that of the Wikipedia page on "Inductive reasoning".

> One of the consequences of this methodology is that it turns out that all known observable phenomena can be described by fairly simple mathematical laws. But science does not assume this.

I'm not sure you fully comprehend, it's much simpler. Science does presuppose that observations mean anything related to more general rules, otherwise what would be the point of observations, right? Otherwise all data would be equivalent to TV static and to build a house we would just hope it builds itself. The way you hedge your bets with phrases like "can be described by" and "appear to" makes me think you intuitively understand the limitations of science when it comes to capturing absolute truths, such as analytical a priori truths (e.g. all bachelors are unmarried), which are correct by definition.

[lisper]

> This is exactly what induction means.

No it isn't. You got it right the first time. Induction "presupposes that we have faith in the proposition that something will happen again because it has happened in the past". But that is wrong. Science does not presuppose this.

> Science does presuppose that observations mean anything related to more general rules

No, it does not. It observes that the world behaves according to general rules. It does not presuppose that it does.

[chickenimprint]

> You got it right the first time. No, I gave an example of inductive reasoning common in science. Induction means concluding from the particular to the general. So in this case we might have observed something happening in the past, induced it happens in all of time, deduced that future time is part of all time by definition, and finally concluded that it will happen in the future. Induction is not restricted to time, it can equally be a generalization over time or any circumstance really.

We don't check each and every room in the country to see if general relativity holds there, and then fall in despair once we realize it might have randomly stopped holding in one of them yesterday.

> No, it does not. It observes that the world behaves according to general rules. It does not presuppose that it does.

I'd like to see you explain how you can you observe a rule. Are you God? Can you see all of space and time and all possible dimensions? Science observes particulars and tries to formulate general rules based on these observations. If science would not use induction, any observation would be meaningless, because the exact circumstances the observation was carried out in would cease to exist the moment the observation was concluded.

Therefore, science is susceptible to the induction problem.

[lisper]

> I'd like to see you explain how you can you observe a rule.

You need to read what I say more closely. I did not say that science observes rules. I said that science seeks good explanations for observations, and it just so happens that the best explanations for how nature behaves turn out to look like rules.

[mensetmanusman]

Science has no means to get at moral truths, just physical observations. It can’t even prove per definition whether moral truths exist, or why anything exists at all.

[lisper]

That's not true. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation

[NateEag]

I haven't read it, but I believe that book addresses how certain behaviors may have evolved.

That is unrelated to whether those behaviors are in an abstract sense "right" or "good".

[lisper]

It never ceases to amaze me how people can appear so confident while pontificating from a position of profound and self-professed ignorance. You admit you haven't read the book, and yet somehow you know that its content is unrelated to whether or not behavior is "right" or "good". You are wrong. Evolved behavior has everything to do with it. There is no behavior other than "evolved behavior". Without that, you can't even say what it means for a behavior to be "right or good in an abstract sense" without appeal to authority.

[NateEag]

Statements like "you are wrong" indicate more confidence to me than statements like "I believe."

I may well be wrong about the book's nature. My assessment was based on the Wiki article you linked and my study of moral philosophy, epistemology, and science as a methodology for the past several years.

Are you familiar with the is-ought problem? If so, what do you make of it? How does that fit with your understanding of evolution as creating moral good?

[lisper]

> Statements like "you are wrong" indicate more confidence to me than statements like "I believe."

Well, yeah, but my confidence is grounded in knowledge because I've actually read the book.

(Also, you made two statements. The one I was criticizing was not qualified by "I believe" but rather simply stated as a bald fact.)

> Are you familiar with the is-ought problem?

Yes.

> If so, what do you make of it? How does that fit with your understanding of evolution as creating moral good?

You are moving the goal posts. The statement that you made which I was criticizing was:

> I believe that book addresses how certain behaviors may have evolved. That is UNRELATED to whether those behaviors are in an abstract sense "right" or "good". [Emphasis added]

So I did not say that evolution "created moral good". What I said was that the claim that "evolution is unrelated to whether behaviors are in an abstract sense 'right' or 'good'" is wrong, i.e. evolution is related to whether behaviors are in an abstract sense 'right' or 'good'. But I did not say how it is related. If you want to know that you will need to read the book.

[mensetmanusman]

Evolutionary arguments allow for any moral behavior that improves your survival chance, which is why it isn’t taken very seriously.

[lisper]

No, that's not true. You need to read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins. Evolution produces behavior that improves the reproductive fitness of your genes, not you. And that turns out to be a very significant constraint.