On 3/13/2012 4:15 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
> However, faulty arguments do give their conclusions a bad reputation.
> Somewhere a preacher is citing Piltdown Man as proof that evolution is
> false, and somewhere an atheist is claiming that the Shroud of Turin
> disproves all Biblical claims.
Well, it certainly, by itself, fails to prove anything. However, when 
added to the fact that nothing older than a certain point was written on 
the subject, that nearly all elements of the story are repeated in older 
theologies, that dates any places only superficially, or do not at all, 
add up, etc., the preponderance of evidence suggests a very low 
probability of "most" of it being true, and a high probability of many 
parts being completely wrong. The flaw is not that they are used to 
support one or the other proposition, its that one is a single point 
refutation of a vast collection of data, all of which point one 
direction, while the other is likely actually being presented as an 
exemplar of the sort of flawed evidence that underlies the whole premise 
being defending with it. Its unlikely anyone is actually presenting it 
at **the** single case of such error, instead of an example, and if they 
where, one would be entirely justified in claiming it was neither a 
valid argument, by itself.

Erroneous conclusions are, in this regard, a result of cherry picking 
data, while ignoring the larger picture. It is possible for many 
explanations to exist, some may even be useful, but very few are 
*plausible*, when taking in context of the whole. Skepticism is about 
getting as close to the right one as possible, given as much of the data 
as possible, and with the only presupposition being that the data itself 
may be incomplete, and could change.

This would be the "valid and proper". Where as, taking the first 
explanation, would be "invalid", if evidence suggested it could be 
false, and its certainly not "proper" if reached via that method, or 
through the exclusion of contrary data. Its possible to be a skeptic and 
misinformed. Its not possible to be a skeptic and refuse to be informed 
at all.

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