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    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that A responsible inquirer cannot afford to dismiss out of hand all cases that seem to defy ordinary naturalistic explanation.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.The argument from authority commits a well-documented fallacy: even eminent investigators are systematically vulnerable to motivated reasoning and confirmation bias.
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    • 2.Historical cases demonstrate that distinguished scientists (e.g., Alfred Russel Wallace, William Crookes) were deceived by skilled fraudsters like the Eddy brothers and Florence Cook.
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    • 3.Reputational risk does not immunize investigators against error; it may instead create psychological pressure to vindicate prior public commitments to the phenomena.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Hume's epistemological principle holds that testimony for miraculous events must be weighed against the base-rate probability of natural alternatives, including fraud, misperception, and confabulation.
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    • 2.The responsible inquirer standard, properly construed, requires proportioning belief to evidence, not treating uneliminated anomalies as credible candidates for supernatural explanation.
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    • 3.A phenomenon resisting ordinary explanation under imperfect investigative conditions is more parsimoniously attributed to methodological limitation than to violations of established natural law.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.The phenomena have been attested as probably veridical by some highly reputable investigators, including philosophers such as William James, Henry Sidgwick, C.D. Broad, H.H. Price, and John Beloff.
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    • 2.These men had little to gain personally by their investigations; indeed in undertaking them they endangered already well-established reputations.
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    • 3.Investigating the subject with finely-honed critical instincts, they applied stringent tests in selecting instances they consider to be credible, and rejected many cases they held to be fraudulent or inadequately attested.
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    Next step

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    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.