I think others have said this already, but here goes:
NOBODY WANTS TO CLAIM THAT STATEMENT A IS TRUE!
IT’S A STUPID STATEMENT!!
OK, on to something else…
You’re missing the point.
Yes, we agree that the statement is false. However, some people don’t believe it’s self-contradictory. The text which you quoted demonstrates that it DOES contradict itself.
In other words, there are two claims being discussed: “Is Statement A true?” and “Is it self-refuting?” The people here – or rather, most of them – agree on the first point, but not on the second. (I say “most” because at least one poster described it as an “axiomatic claim,” which isn’t the same as saying it’s false.)
Also, some people DO claim that Statement A is true. Heck, it was stated as a principal argument in a formal debate. Besides, I myself have heard it said in other contexts, by people who should know better.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by JThunder *
This makes no sense. “Statement A is not scientific. Ergo, Statement A contradicts itself” is valid only if Statement A claims that it is scientific. Since Statement A never claimed to be scientific, it is not contradictory. I really don’t understand why so many people have such great trouble understanding what the word “contradict” means. It does not mean “expresses a belief I disagree with”. It means “says that both A and not A are true”. If you think that this statement contradicts itself, you need to find some statement which it both comfirms and denies.
Science does not require that we examine every situation. Has there every been a scientific test that objects of different masses dropped in Borneo on the third Wednesday of the month during a full moon while the experimenter sings the theme song from “Mr. Ed” fall at the same rate? I doubt it. Does that mean that the theory of gravity is not scientific?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by The Ryan *
**
Yes, it is.
It says that science is the only way to know the truth. It purports to be a true statement, so it also purports to be scientific. Clear yet?
Ryan, maybe this will make this more clear.
If we say that Statement A is not scientific, they according to itself, we can not know that it’s true. If we do not know that it’s true, then we do not know that we do not know that it’s true. Ergo, we have contradictions built upon contradictions. That statement claims to present a known truth, but indirectly shows that this truth can not be known.
On the other hand, if we say that it is scientific, then we are making a claim that is both false and unproven. So, the contradiction remains.
BTW, there’s something that the critics keep missing. Some of you claim that the statement is scientifically testable . We’ve already seen many problems with that claim, such as the impossibility of reliably identifying all possible non-scientific paths to knowledge. Even if we grant that claim though, another problem still remains. Until the experiment is actually conducted and comes out positive, Statement A still can not be considered a scientific claim. Hence, the contradiction remains.
So in summary, if Statement A is scientifically untestable, it immediately contradicts itself. If it is testable but false, then it is unscientific, and so it also contradicts itself. And if it testable (which it isn’t!) but “true,” – well, that test hasn’t been conducted yet, and so we can not legitimately claim its truth. Ergo, we contradict ourselves if we claim to know that it’s true.
BTW, in case it isn’t clear yet, I would have been more precise in saying that the person claiming Statement A would be contradicting himself. He would be claiming Statement A to be true, even though he has no scientific proof thereof.
Ultimately, that’s the bottom line. If someone says that science is the only way to know something, you can just ask “And what scientific technique did you use to arrive at that conclusion?”
BTW, a previous poster claims that we must arrive at somehow. That’s true – but only because we arrive at them by recognizing their self-evidency, and thus assume them to be true. For example, you can not logically prove that “If A implies B, and B implies C, then A implies C” is true. Why? Because it is a fundamental rule of logic, one which science implicitly assumes. Since science assumes its correctness, we can not use science to test its validity – except insofar as it might be disproven through reductio ad absurdum, which I’m confident would never happen.
I don’t see any contradiction. Can you explicitly state the statement which has been proven both true and false, and show how it has been so proven?
If someone makes this statement, all they are claiming is that they believe the statement. Just because you believe something, that doesn’t mean you know it. If someone were to state that science is the only way to belief, rather than knowledge, that would be an incredibly silly statement. “We must reject this, because we do not know that it is true” strikes me as a very curious attitude.