On rejecting reports of unexpected things upfront

Last updated on: May 27, 2020 at 10:55 pm by Dan Peterson

On rejecting reports of unexpected things upfront 2020-05-27T22:55:49-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Not quite the way things really are (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

A note extracted from John Warwick Montgomery, “Miracle Evidence: How Philosophers Go Wrong,” Philosophia Christi 17/1 (2015): 199-203, followed by my own meditations on it:

“No testimony,” wrote Hume, “is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish.” . . .

The Humean argument depended squarely on an eighteenth-century, absolutist view of natural law, impossible today in an Einsteinian, relativistic universe. Hume believed that our existing knowledge of the universe was sufficient to establish the cosmic unlikelihood of a miracle versus the likelihood of lying, deception, or incredible naïveté on the part of the witnesses to it. In point of fact, one cannot second-guess the universe as to what is likely or unlikely to happen; philosophers (just like the rest of us) must get off their deductivistic derrières and examine the empirical evidence for each miracle claim without prejudice for or against. That is the only way to avoid the gross circularity built into the Humean argument: miracles (obviously) will never occur if there is, as Hume asserted, “uniform experience” against the miraculous; but to assume such uniform testimony in the face of genuine miracle claims just begs the question! (200)

My observation: A great many counter-intuitive and non-commonsensical facts lie at the very base of modern science. Here are just a few items, not necessarily even the best, from a list that could go into the hundreds or thousands:

The physical Universe that we know — planets, stars, galaxies, black holes, dust — makes up just 4 percent of whatever stuff is out there. The rest is either dark matter, at 23 percent of the Universe, or dark energy, at 73 percent.
E=mc2
The Earth is not at the center of the Universe
Earth isn’t flat. It’s a globe.
Space itself is curved.
Light is “bent” by gravity.
The Universe is finite but unbounded.
Light is both particle and wave.
The more precisely the position of a particle is determined, the less precisely its momentum can be predicted from initial conditions, and vice versa. This is the “Heisenberg uncertainty principle.”
I grew up imagining that atoms were miniature “solar systems,” with hard little negatively-charged particles, indivisible electrons, whizzing around nuclei made up of hard little protons and neutrons. We were long past the idea that atoms were literally atomos (Greek ἄτομος, “uncut,” “indivisible”), but my very young notions were themselves already obsolete. My picture of solid subatomic particles has had to be replaced by hard-to-envision concepts like “probability waves.”
Energy is emitted in discrete quanta, not continuously.
Even the most solid objects are mostly empty space.
Space and time came into existence in the Big Bang about 13.8 billion years ago
Quantum entanglement, or “spooky action at a distance.”
Measurements of certain systems cannot be made without affecting or changing those systems. This is the so-called “observer effect.”

And so on and so forth. Accepted, such facts have led to enormous scientific advances. Had they been rejected — and, on the basis of Hume’s principle, the reasons for at least initial rejection would seem to go far beyond ordinary cautious skepticism — we would still be living with nineteenth-century science. At the best.

Previous Post

May 25, 2020

Memorial Day 2020

Next Post

May 26, 2020 Gathering the scriptural passages about the experience of the Book of Mormon Witnesses

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 March 2014 August 2013 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which relative of Saul cursed and threw stones at David during Absalom's rebellion?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Mephibosheth Jonathan Ish-bosheth Shimei