On miracles, the supernatural and the burden of proof

Vallicella of Phoenix has an interesting and worthwhile series of posts on the burden of proof, of which the latest is here. In that, he writes

For one who plays the scientific 'game' and abides by its rules, there is no question but that the burden of proof lies on the one who asserts that there are miracles. No scientist worth his salt could hold that there is a presumption in favor of the existence of miracles. It is the other way around: there is an exceedingly strong, if not quite indefeasible, presumption in favor of their nonexistence, and indeed of the nonexistence of anything nonnatural. But this onus-assignment is relative to the scientific 'game' and partially constitutive of it.

Two points. First, I don’t believe there is any scientific ‘game’. The burden of proof is simply to show that any event, or kind of event exists. The default position is to reject all existence claims – not just miracles.

Second, I don’t believe there is any such kind of thing as a miracle (or supernatural event). But there are kinds of accounts, which fall into several easily identifiable patterns. For example, if we define ‘miracle’ as the purported referent of an account which is inherently implausible and unsupported by any strong evidence (and usually and in addition there exists evidence that the claim is being made for reasons unrelated to scientific objectivity) of course the default position is to reject miracles, and the burden of proof is to supply the evidence that is conspicuously lacking.

It is not that scientists hold a strong presumption in favour of the nonexistence of a certain type of event (‘the nonnatural’), as Vallicella appears to suggest. Rather, that there is a strong presumption by scientists in favour of rejecting the existence of anything referred to by a certain type of account. The ‘burden of proof’ is merely the requirement to supply a certain kind of account.

On Miracles

Alan Rhoda has found a link to a fascinating debate here, on whether there is "Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?" between William Lane Craig and Bart D. Ehrman.

All these have more of the theatrical and gladiatorial than the logical and rational. One feels that a hatchet or a knife or even a gun should be issued at a suitable point in the proceedings so they can get down to the real business. And what is always so fascinating, is the irrationality of the argument increases with the obvious intelligence of the participants. But interesting all the same.

Both sides misrepresented Hume. Hume's point, in the essay On Miracles, is that in considering the evidence for an extremely implausible event (which is what the word 'miracle' really implies, namely something amazing or to be wondered at, something which is scarcely believable), we must always consider which is more implausible, the miraculous event itself, or the possibility that the evidence for it is flawed in some way, however small.

Also no one mentioned the possibility that the evidence is flawed is greatly increased, is when the person producing the evidence have some interest in what it is evidence for. I don't know much about what motivated the authors of the gospels to write them. If the motive for writing the gospels were in any way correlated (think of official histories) with the need to prove them correct, we might deservedly be suspicious.

Some of the sillier quotes.

"Hume had an excuse for his abject failure: the probability calculus hadn’t yet been developed in his day.".

"everybody’s read The DaVinci Code" (false - I haven't).

"In order to show that that hypothesis is improbable, you’d have to show that God’s existence is improbable. But Dr. Ehrman says that the historian cannot say anything about God. Therefore, he cannot say that God’s existence is improbable."