Critical Thinking and Absolute VS Optimal Truth.

Critical thinking is what all truthseekers undertake, and its process is simple enough if not time consuming: “A scientific or rationally valid statement is one where the power of reason has been applied to all available data without any of them being suppressed or falsified for the sake of a desired result…E Fromm”

The notion of absolute is actually a theistic premiss, and specifically a premiss supporting Authoritarian Ethics/doctrines, whereby critical examination is ruled out in the premiss as it’s declared Absolute.
So as far as scientific or rational thinking goes, whilst there may not be any absolute statements, there are objectively valid laws and principles.
And inherent in it’s definition, optimal truths are prone to ongoing improvements and rejections if found to be lacking, a trial and error process is an option as far as rational/scientific truths are concerned, but this is forbidden once we adopt absolutist mentalities.

For example, if I were to start a topic on Iraq2 and offered data and commentry from an Arabic source, it would be inappropriate to rule out the info because of it’s source, but entirely reasonable to dismiss it based on a critical evaluation of the data and logic derived from it.
So asserting it’s just Arabic propaganda is the sign of a failure to think critically.

Here’s some online Logical Fallacies.

http://www.abc.net/cgi-bin/dir/frames.cgi?url=http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/welcome.htm

This is an interesting point and one that troubles me.

Now it is understood that scientific thinking is not supposed to be in itself an absolute consideration, but I think often you notice that people present science not much differently than how they present dogmatic interpretations of absolutism except in terms of duration and empiricism.

Now I am sure that many are ready to argue against this and I encourage that, but it seems to me that science encourages itself to be absolute at times. Now when I mention absolute I consider it in terms of conviction and science definitely encourages one to hold some type of conviction eventually. If we never held any convictions, then it would be impossible for us to maintain what we consider to be factual scientifically. Now these convictions are much more arbitrary than they are say compared to religious or philosophical convictions, but they are still convictions nonetheless.

I think such shallow convictions that science invites by method is why science can grow so quickly. However, I find it interesting that many argue against the convictions of non-scientific understandings through the use of scientific conviction themselves. Although I think conviction within the realms of science should be as arbitrary as possible to induce growth, the abscence of conviction would be pointless and one could never grasp anything.

We often as scientist hold reverence to the scientific method much like one would with the ten commandments. The methods for establishing objectivity are really no far removed from the methods for establishing what is deemed absolute. The rules and implications for such considerations are the foundation for eventual conviction. Philosophical, religious, and even scientific belief requires conviction to some extent to be a useful application. Rules are necessary for such applications. Rules that we deem absolute to a certain extent.

When a scientist argues that this may be what is going on here, then that scientist is relying on certain rules and convictions relative to those rules to make such a consideration. One cannot get anymore absolute than when one has reliance upon numbers in which is the basis of science. One could claim that numbers are the “Gods” of science. Infinite, ominscient (especially in terms of binary code), “perfect” in their reliability and consistency.

Praise Pythagoras! lol

Absolute is certainly a theistic premise, however, in theism, specifically monotheism, it does not support Authoritarian Ethics, but rules them out. In monotheism absolute ethics is impossible because there is only one Absolute which would be God. So God is the only thing that wouldn’t be subject to critical examination, but certainly any ethical system, along with everything else conceivable, is subject to critical exam.

Then in the scientists religion, the God of gods would be the number One. That is, in any and all equations, the One is understood.

ie:

[size=150][b]1/b[/size]

Nice point!

Except the NULL set.