Philosophy of Science and Affirming the Consequent

All of the Psychologists and Personality Theorists turn to Joseph F. Rychlak for this information because he pioneered Humanism, and he was twice a president of the APA’s division of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology.

Most scientists have no idea how important the Philosophy of Science really is. The Materialists, Naturalists, Darwinists, Nihilists, Behaviorists, Determinists, Physical Reductionists, and Atheists are doing science wrong; and, they don’t even know it.

One of the most significant and life-changing scientific discoveries that I made during my research came to me while studying the Philosophy of Science when I was introduced to affirming the consequent and negating the consequent. It totally changed the way that I look at Science and the way that I practice or do Science.

I even had a college professor who was teaching us how to produce syllogisms that use affirming the consequent and negating the consequent so that we could learn to see the difference between the two.

Knowledge is power; and, this is powerful stuff.

The following articles were KEY when it came to this scientific discovery.

Rychlak, J. F. (1970). The Human Person in Modern Psychological Science. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 43(3), 233–240.

https://mypsyche.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Rychlak.pdf

Slife, B. D. & Williams, R. N. (1995). Science and Human Behavior. In What’s Behind the Research? Discovering Hidden Assumptions in the Behavioral Sciences, (pp. 167–204). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

http://mypsyche.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Science.pdf

Gantt, E. (2014). Logical Arguments. In Psychology 353 – LDS Perspectives in Psychology, (pp. 8-11). Provo, UT: Brigham Young University.

https://philosophy-of-science.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Logical-Arguments.pdf

Gantt, E. (2014). Leveling the Playing Field – Why Science is Not a Trump Card. In Psychology 353 – LDS Perspectives in Psychology, (pp. 50-58). Provo, UT: Brigham Young University.

https://philosophy-of-science.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Verification-vs-Falsification.pdf

You see, the way we choose to define science and the way we choose to do science makes all the difference in the world.

Knowledge of affirming the consequent, negating the consequent, and the Philosophy of Science led me to redefine Science and to remake Science.

Mark My Words

Redefining Science

Knowledge of affirming the consequent and the Philosophy of Science led me to redefine Science.

Using the Scientific Method to Eliminate the Usual Suspects and to Prove the Truth

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01J6STHP0

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521133581

NATURE vs. NURTURE vs. NIRVANA: An Introduction to Reality

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JWRCSVA

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521132615

Quantum Mechanics from a Non-Physical Spiritual Perspective

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01J023TGU

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521132380

Science 2.0: I Upgraded My Science

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0771K6WTX

Science 2.0 redefines Science as Observation and Experience. Science 2.0 changes Science so that Science allows ALL of the evidence into evidence and pursues a preponderance of that evidence. Science 2.0 is based upon Phenomenology or the Lived Experiences of the human race and NOT Materialism and Naturalism. I basically redefined Science as Action at a Distance, Fine-Tuning, Quantum Mechanics, Syntropy, Psyche, and Intelligence. Science is what the scientists do. Science depends on the people or the psyches who do the Science. The definition for Science and the way we do science has needed upgrading for centuries. I developed and provided that upgrade so that I could develop new Science. Science has been headed this way for decades. I just completed the process and then started using it to make new and interesting scientific discoveries.

Changing Methodologies

Knowledge of negating the consequent and the Philosophy of Science led me to change the way that I do Science.

Quantum Neuroscience: The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079Z6QQQB

Based upon the principles that I gleaned from negating the consequent, the Philosophy of Science, and Science 2.0, I updated Neuroscience and brought it into the Quantum Age or the modern-age. Neuroscience is based upon Classical Physics, Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, Nihilism, Behaviorism, Determinism, Physical Reductionism, Entropy, and Atheism. Quantum Neuroscience is based upon Syntropy, Quantum Mechanics, Action at a Distance, Psyche, and the Orthodox Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics by Henry P. Stapp. There’s a bit of a difference between the two. Materialism and Naturalism deny the existence of Quantum Mechanics, Action at a Distance, Syntropy, and Supernatural Mechanisms; and, the verified and proven existence of Quantum Mechanics, Syntropy, Psyche, and Action at a Distance falsifies Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, Nihilism, Behaviorism, Determinism, Physical Reductionism, and even Atheism. The one denies God’s existence; and, the other verifies God’s existence. I asked myself which one provides us with most of the verified and proven Science. Quantum Mechanics subsumes Classical Physics and Naturalism, meaning that Naturalism and Classical Physics are a small sub-set of Quantum Mechanics. Quantum Mechanics or Supernatural Mechanics gives us everything that Classical Physics gives us, and then it gives us infinitely more. Science 2.0 and Quantum Neuroscience are based upon Quantum Mechanics.

Scientific Proof of God’s Existence: A Primer”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071713NNL

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521325170

Scientific Proof of God’s Existence: Finding God Where the Atheists Refuse to Look for Him

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B26CRHX

Syntropy in Defense of Quantum Mechanics: The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BPT3W8R/

What Is Affirming the Consequent?

When it comes to the Philosophy of Science, Science, Personality Theory, Psychology, and the Scientific Method, I discovered that studying and learning the difference between affirming the consequent and negating the consequent is the most interesting and most useful concept that one can study and learn about. It’s the concept that paid the most dividends in the end. All of the Psychologists and Personality Theorists turn to Joseph Rychlak for this information because he pioneered Humanism, and he was twice a president of the APA’s division of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology.

Scientific Inference, Scientific Verification, Affirming the Consequent, or Affirming One’s Conclusion involves jumping to conclusions, a blind leap of faith, circular reasoning, or begging the question. It involves using your Consequent or your Conclusion as evidentiary proof that your Conclusion is true.

When we are first presented with the Theory of Evolution, most of us just instinctively KNOW that it is false. I mean, how many human beings have you seen descending from apes and monkeys in our modern age? It doesn’t happen because it can’t happen. Macro-Evolution of any kind is prevented from happening by random mutations and genetics. Consequently, the Darwinists and Naturalists turn to affirming the consequent in order to convince us that the Theory of Evolution is true, and the ruse works. Millions have fallen for the deception and can’t see anything wrong with it.

However, thanks to random mutations and genetics, it’s physically impossible for chimp-like ancestors to repeatedly and reliably produce genetically compatible Mr. and Mrs. Mutants at the same place and in the same time year after year for millions of years. It can’t be done, which means that it wasn’t done. Chimp-like ancestors don’t give birth to genetically compatible male and female chimpanzees and human beings. It has never been observed, and it never will be because it is physically impossible. Random mutations and genetics prevent it from happening.

I had to understand why most scientists believe that Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, Nihilism, Behaviorism, Determinism, Physical Reductionism, Atheism, and the Theory of Evolution are true. There’s got to be a logical reason.

Affirming the consequent, begging the question, circular reasoning, special pleading, hindsight bias, and confirmation bias have provided me with that reason. After studying the Philosophy of Science, I could finally see it and understand it. I can see what has been done to us and where we went wrong as scientists.

It all makes sense to me now.

Affirming the consequent is the logic fallacy upon which the Scientific Method, Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, and Traditional Science are based.

We can’t use Science and the Scientific Methods to verify and know the Truth. Verification doesn’t work because it’s logically flawed. Scientific Methods cannot be used to produce Knowledge and Truth.

Due to the affirming the consequent logic fallacy, and the jumping to conclusions logic fallacy, and the category error logic fallacies which are built into the scientific methods, it is impossible to use Science and the Scientific Methods to know the truth and to prove the truth.

If your ultimate goal in life is to KNOW THE TRUTH and prove the truth, then Science and the Scientific Methods are in fact one of the worst ways for accomplishing that task.

This is how scientific verification or affirming the consequent works in practice.

The following logical argument outlines the basic approach that has been taken by traditional scientists throughout the history of science:

Scientific Hypothesis: If Theory X is true, then we will observe Y.

Scientific Observations: We observe Y.

Scientific Conclusion: Therefore, Theory X is true.

This sort of thinking, however, reflects a logical fallacy called affirming the consequent. Here’s a comparable example to demonstrate:

We hypothesize: If Sally’s pet is a cat, it will have a tail.

We observe: Sally’s pet has a tail.

We conclude: Therefore, Sally’s pet is a cat.

We can easily see that this logic is fallacious. Just because we observe Y (a pet with a tail) that does not mean that our theory X (the pet is a cat) is true. After all, dogs, lizards, birds, and mice have tails too.

Yet, this IS the scientific method, and this is exactly how traditional scientists use the scientific methods to demonstrate and prove the truth. The whole enterprise is based upon a logic fallacy or two.

By affirming the consequent, you can prove anything to be true – anything – including Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, Nihilism, Atheism, and the Theory of Evolution. By affirming the consequent, you can prove that Sally’s pet is a cat, even though it is in fact a bird. By affirming the consequent, you can prove that the theory of evolution is true, even though it is in fact a dog. Do you see how that works?

We hypothesize: If the Theory of Evolution is true, it will match with the fossil record and Darwin’s tree of life.

We observe that the Theory of Evolution matches with the fossil record and Darwin’s tree of life.

We conclude: Therefore, the Theory of Evolution is true.

This is how they prove that the theory of evolution is true. In fact, I see it on almost every page of my college textbooks where the Evolutionists are simply amazed at how miraculously all that evidence supports the truthfulness and predictions of the Theory of Evolution. These people never realize that they are affirming the consequent. They never realize that Darwin’s tree of life and the theory of evolution were carefully designed and tailor-made after-the-fact to match with any and all evidence – past, present, and future. But, their arguments are fallacious, and they don’t even know it.

Why is this argument fallacious?

It’s because some version of Darwin’s tree of life can also be made to match with Intelligent Design Theory or Christianity; and, the different types of Christianity and Islam can be made to match with the fossil record as well. The whole thing is based upon circular reasoning, begging the question, or affirming the consequent. It’s a logic fallacy.

Affirming the consequent is how the Materialists, Naturalists, Darwinists, Nihilists, Behaviorists, Determinists, and Atheists use the Scientific Method to prove that the Theory of Evolution is true. They cheat; and, most of them don’t even realize that they are doing so, because they have never studied the Philosophy of Science.

This is a good point at which to observe that the logic of empirical study is flawed – not fatally, but in a way that limits the certainty with which our explanation of empirically proven facts can be believed in. We never achieve logical necessity [certainty] in the proof garnered by a scientific experiment. This is because we always commit the logical error that Aristotle pointed out long ago, of affirming the consequent of an “If, then” line of argument. Another way of saying this is that the empirical findings act as a predicating meaning for our theory, but there are always going to be other theories that can take meaning from this data array as well. (Rychlak, Artificial Intelligence and Human Reason: A Teleological Critique, p. 33-34).

Drawing conclusions or interpreting the scientific data is an integral and essential part of the Scientific Method; but, this is also where the logic errors and the flaws are introduced into the process. I have observed that Creation by Rocks is never the best explanation that can be given to scientific evidence; yet, Creation by Rocks or Materialism is the explanation that is most-given to scientific evidence. Interesting, is it not?

I have also observed that there are infinitely better and more believable explanations for scientific evidence than Materialism, or Design and Creation by Rocks. Materialism, or Creation by Rocks, always provides a false interpretation or a false explanation to any data array or set of scientific evidence. That has been my observation, once I finally started looking at the empirical evidence and the logic associated with the Scientific Method. Materialism, Naturalism, and Atheism are based upon a refusal to look at contradictory evidence and a refusal to look at any other possible explanation for the scientific evidence. Once I started looking at the logic and the evidence, it was easy to see that Materialism and Naturalism are fatally flawed.

There’s a lot of money that can be made telling the Atheists and the Materialists exactly what they want to hear; but, it’s dishonest. Like Joseph Rychlak’s books, my books go largely unnoticed, because I’m not telling the Materialists and the Atheists what they want to hear; but, I sleep well at night with a clear conscience knowing that I have finally found the truth that I have been searching for all of my life. This stuff is really cool, and it has set me free; but, most people will never see it because they don’t want to see it. Such is life.

The fallacy of affirming-the-consequent stipulates the fact that it will always be possible for some other explanation to account for any empirically observed fact pattern. This loss of certainty in validation is not fatal for the scientific method, of course. It has not prevented scientists from curing polio or putting people on the moon. It merely alerts us to the fact that some conceptualizer [psyche] always has to make a decision as to which fundamental grounding [or interpretation or explanation] will be used in the sequence of theory formation and testing. The grounds are never ‘out there’ in the hard data but ‘in here’ as assumptive frameworks. If we who theorize appreciate that we will never attain certainty in validating our theories, we will be in a better position to see that alternative groundings that explain such empirical evidence can be complementary. To complement is to fill out or make up for what is lacking in any theoretical understanding of a subject. (Rychlak, In Defense of Human Consciousness, pp. 18-19).

Notice that there must be a conceptualizer, psyche, interpreter, theorizer, observer, decider, chooser, and assumer behind every theoretical hypothesis and the Scientific Method, or the science experiment will never take place. The grounds for doing science take place ‘in here’ within our psyche. Contrary to the claims of the Darwinists and the Materialists, you can’t place the rocks or raw physical matter into the role of conceptualizer, psyche, theorizer, formal cause, final cause, or ultimate cause. The rocks won’t go there and can’t do that. Once again, logic and the Scientific Method have proven Materialism and Scientific Naturalism inadequate and false. The Scientific Method can definitely be used to prove things false, which has happened in the case of Materialism and Naturalism thousands of different ways. In fact, the falsification of Materialism and Naturalism is complementary, in that Naturalism and Materialism have been falsified thousands of different ways. We have our fill of evidence demonstrating and proving what is lacking or false in Naturalism and Materialism.

Science can only work through a kind of negating procedure of falsifying claims put to nature by the theorist in question. As scientists, says Popper, we never really verify things but continually falsify – or fail to falsify – claims [theories, hypotheses, etc.] expressed by some investigator [recognizing, of course, that serendipitous findings occur as well]. This is why the scientist always restates his hypothesis into the null form. Ultimately the reason we must falsify has to do with the logical fallacy of ‘affirming the consequent’ of an ‘If [antecedent] . . . then [consequent] . . .’ proposition. We like to think our theory has necessarily been verified, but Popper teaches us that it has not. There will always be, in principle, other ways of accounting for the observed data [the facts] than our preferred theory. (Rychlak, The Psychology of Rigorous Humanism, pp. 181-182).

There will always be other ways of accounting for the scientific data than our preferred conclusion, Materialism.

Affirming the consequent or verification makes the Scientific Method unreliable; and, affirming the consequent is how they prove that Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, Nihilism, Behaviorism, Determinism, Physical Reductionism, Atheism, and the Theory of Evolution are true.

By affirming the consequent, you can prove anything to be true.

But, Science can ONLY work right by negating the consequent, a process that is used to falsify scientific claims and scientific theories such as Materialism, Naturalism, Darwinism, Nihilism, Atheism, and the Theory of Evolution.

Mark My Words

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Source Material

The Ultimate Model of Reality: Psyche Is the Ultimate Cause

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071NC9JK6

BioPsychoSocial: Including Psyche or Light into our Theoretical Models

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713NDHVW

Rychlak, J. F. (1970). The Human Person in Modern Psychological Science. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 43(3), 233–240.

https://mypsyche.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Rychlak.pdf

http://mypsyche.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Science.pdf

Gantt, E. (2014). Logical Arguments. In Psychology 353 – LDS Perspectives in Psychology, (pp. 8-11). Provo, UT: Brigham Young University.

https://philosophy-of-science.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Logical-Arguments.pdf

Gantt, E. (2014). Leveling the Playing Field – Why Science is Not a Trump Card. In Psychology 353 – LDS Perspectives in Psychology, (pp. 50-58). Provo, UT: Brigham Young University.

https://philosophy-of-science.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Verification-vs-Falsification.pdf

Rychlak, J. F. (1979). Discovering Free Will and Personal Responsibility. New York: Oxford University Press.

Rychlak, J. F. (1981a). A Philosophy of Science for Personality Theory (2nd ed.). Malabar, FL: Robert E. Krieger Publishing Company.

Rychlak, J. F. (1981b). Introduction to Personality and Psychotherapy: A Theory-Construction Approach (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Rychlak, J. F. (1982). Personality and Life-Style of Young Male Managers: A Logical Learning Theory Analysis. New York: Academic Press.

Rychlak, J. F. (1988). The Psychology of Rigorous Humanism (2nd ed.). New York: New York University Press.

Rychlak, J. F. (1991). Artificial Intelligence and Human Reason: A Teleological Critique. New York: Colombia University Press.

Rychlak, J. F. (1994). Logical Learning Theory: A Human Teleology and Its Empirical Support. Lincoln, NE: Nebraska University Press.

Rychlak, J. F. (1997). In Defense of Human Consciousness. Washington DC: American Psychological Association.

Rychlak, J. F. (2003). The Human Image in Postmodern America. Washington DC: American Psychological Association.