micahrp said:
Argument from authority is when:
X holds that A is true. X is a legitimate expert on the subject. The consensus of experts agrees with X. Therefore, there's a presumption that A is true.
-- Wikipedia
All I did was cite my source for two logical statements and then show how to apply the logic of those statements.
I do know what the argument from Authority is. I'm using the more commonly used logical fallacy of it, the Appeal to False Authority. There's several different Appeals to Authority possible, I should have been more clear, my apologies. This is generally the definitions I subscribe to: http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#authority
And yes, using Einstein's statement about models is actually not a logical principle. He's not an authority on defining logic, and his statement is unverifiable, and, for some cases, potentially factually incorrect. It's an assumption. And that it comes from Einstein does not make it logical. If your premise is true, which I contest it isn't, it still does not make gay marriage wrong, as it has not been tested. One cannot verify the usefulness of a model without testing. And there was never any verification of the model in use now, and that model is inconsistent, and still results in gay parenting, which makes all of this rather speculative, rather than factual.
To test other models someone would have to come up with a hypothesis for a working homosexual societal model. History is the test for the model. The simple counter example to this argument is for you cite where it worked in the past. Right now we are the closest the human race has ever been to the possibility of it working, but only due to extreme scientific advancements such as cloning or research indicating that adults cells could be forced to sub-dividing into near sperm styles cells for fertilization of eggs.
We don't need a homosexual societal model. We're not proposing that. We're talking about gays having the right to marry, in which you brought up childrearing. I contest that it is not about childbirth, or childrearing, but even if it were, we have not tested any hypothesis scientifically, or even formed them.
History is not the test for the model. We did not form a hypothesis and test it, and we have no controls or comparisons. This is not how we do science. This is saying that what we have seems to work, so we'll keep it, which is an Appeal to Tradition, or Argument from Antiquity. It's not science, and it's a poor example of Post hoc reasoning. There have been many things that seemed to work. Slavery, the lack of inter-racial marriages, Newtonian physics. But they aren't accepted simply because they've traditionally worked at some point. We aren't trying to predict the behaviour of subatomic particles with Newtonian mechanics because it doesn't work. Now, whether or not the thing works or not, it's age, and any track record of success do not preclude variance. Were this the case, finding alternate treatments (By which I mean science based, not "Alternative", ie, CAM) for disease would not be done, as we already have a history of success. Science occurs by testing, retesting, and by a rigorous process of blinding and controlling. We can't say: "That seemed to work" and be done.
Now, whether homosexuals can reproduce or not is not really important to it anyway. Gays could still marry before that without any societal repurcussions, and whether they wished for children or not would be their issue, to be solved with science, or by their own choice on how to do so naturally, and not one which needs to be overcome to justify their marriage.
No where in my post did I say we stop less than ideal situations from existing, I just pointed out that they cannot be endorsed and that is what everyone here wants the government to do.
If we are going to examine specific cases, was being raised by the single parent ideal? In my case no it was not. It must not have been for you either if there were step families later. My mother has admitted it was making the best of a bad situation.
Indeed. But what I mean is that it is not valid to say that the model is one man, one woman, when it is not, one man, one woman, and it is invariably more complex, and the "Test" of history is even less interpretable. It's a terrible way to conduct a trial. Now, I'd hypothesis that if a single parent of single gender (Presumably, although they could change during their parenthood, however, I'd assume this is in the minority), is acceptable, then two parents of the same gender would likely be acceptable. There's no way to know if it wouldn't be acceptable if we don't try it out. Which, yes, could be seen as a potentially unethical thing to do, from a medical ethics point of view, but as we don't have any mechanism for harm, or even a reasonable suspicion for one, I doubt that there'd be any ethical board which would deny such an experiment (And that we're talking about experimenting to decide something when others had it granted with no though is really ridiculous, and is part of what I mean by the inequality: We analyse them, but not ourselves), were it to be proposed. This is however, a speculatory comment.
No it can't be taken that way. You have left off the long continuation principle. There are whole societies that have long existed where no one was allowed to marry the person they wanted to marry. Did they even know the person they were married to? I thought the original intent of the veil was you didn't get to know whom your parents/match-maker were marrying you.
Again, none of these were tested, or proposed scientifically either, and in todays society, people ARE allowed to marry the person they want to marry. I'm talking about this. We can try to talk about other societies, were people can't marry who they want to, and I'd say that they should be allowed to marry who they like, or, that marriage is a pointless societal contract.
Those other societies are not what I'm talking about, as clearly, they are talking about a different situation. And yes, I do believe it can be taken that way, but, if we are to take it that marriage is not a benefit to society when homosexuals do it, it would be, by necessity, in abscence of any reason to doubt single gender, or multiple persons of the same gender parenting, no benefit for straight people to marry. Which would be fine, but you stated it as an argument against gay marriage, with no mention of this.
It may be that the veil was designed to prevent viewing, and whatnot. Personally, I've always found weddings as a topic kind of boring, so I've never had much of a reading background on it. Although, I've always considered arranged marriages as wrong.
I never stated they are unable to raise a child. I am pointing out these models do not meet the burden of proof that they are societally functional enough to deserve endorsement.
None of the other models met a burden of proof either. We can't choose one irrational model and ignore all other models. That would be both irrational and immoral.
And, your burden of proof seems to be that they can continue as a society. I do not see this as a requirement. If they cannot reproduce, or if they can't create more of themselves, I see as of supreme irrelevance to the act of marriage. If we define societally functional as in, don't cause harm to other members of society, I guess we'd have to know if Gay people hurt others by being in relationships (They don't), which leaves the question of, does it cause any harm to any children they raise, should we consider their parenting. Again, I think such a presumption of incompetence is insulting, but we'd have to test it. Of course, there is no mechanism for harm, and no reason to suspect it.
This is one of the key differences between science based enquiry and evidence based enquiry, and in societal and medical cases, it is almost always more prudent to utilise a science based, and not exclusively evidence based model.
The arguments are based on asking questions and showing how the proposed change would work in a closed system. The real world never conforms to ideals and no matter what the world will continue to exist, but when legislating and adjudicating our society the only rational intent is to aim for functional models.
Functional models aren't of a closed system though. That's wrong. A functional model would have to represent society as a whole. We're not talking about establishing a gay only society and seeing what happens, we're talking about allowing gays to marry in this society.
And as we have no science based reasons to expect any harm above what we already allow (Single parenting may be less than adequate, gay parenting
may have a similar issue, ie, one gender of parent), there is no reason that the model would be any different than what already exists. Fundamentally, we're talking about different things, and your attempt at constructing a model are not including what I am discussing. I am discussing allowing gays to marry in our society. If that means their families can't continue, that is their problem, and one which science is close to solving, but more importantly, it's something that they have to decide is of consequence, not us.
(I think this is the second reply to your post, since I've already replied to the other one, which was much more friendly)
If we propose that we must model the effect of gay parenting, we must model the other. We cannot allow either to continue whilst we test, ethically. So, we come to an impasse if we want to test any models. We've no reason to suspect any model apart from the current situation would apply, so we'd be making an assumption and an unverified hypothesis to decide that it is, and the only way to test that hypothesis, again, would be to wait. A hypothetical objection to a situation with no known or definite issues is not worth crediting.
I know I'm harsh in my statements, I'm a poor communicator. My point is, we can't treat them differently on inherent suspicion and caution simply because we think something might be up with no cause. We have no cause. We can guess at problems, but those are the assumptions and hypothesis, and upon
them[/] rests the burden of proof. Meanwhile, whether gays can create a family line, or have a family, or anything else, is still not a reason for gays not to marry. This is what I meant by the Unstated Major Premise. Gays could marry and have no children, adopted or created, and none of your arguments would apply. And Gay parenting happens without Gay Marriage, so it's already happening, models be damned. The real issue is giving paper legitimacy to something which already exists.
