Drawing conclusions before the evidence is in

I wanted to make the Evidence forum available for students to begin thinking about the concept of requiring evidence for these philosophical questions as this process may be new for many. Many students have already begun to post comments to the discussion. However, for some of the questions (such as the question of God's existence) it seems premature to draw conclusions before even researching or learning about the available evidence. But, this does illustrate an interesting philosophical point. Notice how easy it is to draw conclusions and form beliefs without collecting any evidence or knowing about the efforts put in to do just that!

Don't misunderstand. I'm not saying that once everyone reads what we cover in this course which relates to these questions the evidence will clearly indicate what the answer is to each of these questions. But, making pronouncements without examining any of the evidence is not philosophically sound. What if you were going before a judge in a court case and as the trial begins the judge comes in, calls everyone to order, and then issues the ruling without hearing any evidence? Wouldn't that seem wrong? Likewise, I think we're jumping the gun in our examination of these questions as well.

It may turn out to be true that there is no way to provide proof or evidence for any of these questions but, again, how can we draw this conclusion before examining the evidence? It is all too easy to believe any number of things about these questions, including that they cannot be answered. But, as Bertrand Russel once said "What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite."

Another purpose of the Evidence discussion board is to help everyone (including me as my own reading and research is ongoing with regard to these questions) recognize that there is a lot of background knowledge that one really needs to be familiar with before drawing conclusions about these questions. One of the purposes of this course is to introduce students to this background knowledge and its effects on our understanding of the world around us.

While there are still many unanswered questions with regard to the evidence that relates to these questions, there is quite a bit that we do know concerning how the mind/brain works, how we gain knowledge, the fundamental structure of reality (thanks to relativity and quantum mechanics), the origin of the universe, the age of the earth, the natural history of life on earth. Aside from the fact that this is useful information in our quest to answer these questions, it is also really interesting! Let's all take this opportunity to be curious and learn about these things!