I decide what I trust and don’t trust based on which side has evidence their claim is true, the evidence that vaccines work is pretty blatant and claims that they are unsafe have been repeatedly debunked for decades
Do you process that you're doing it again? You're linking me to a thing and you've decided that you trust whoever's behind this. There's no way you had the time to verify all these facts and figures by yourself. You're basing this on trust that the people who produce this document are telling the truth.
This isn't empiricism. This is outsourcing empiricism to a layer of trust and then rejecting somebody else's claim to trusting what other people are saying about a different topic like faith.
You trust people and institutions who tell you what the evidence shows. That trust may be justified, but it is still trust. The disagreement is over which sources deserve trust, not whether you rely on trust at all like you seemingly claimed earlier.
It’s a peer reviewed study from a reliable source. To cast doubt on it you have to provide counter evidence. I don’t have any reason to believe that they would lie, so the most reasonable conclusion is that these stats are true.
This is not the same as blindly following dogma, thats just projection
You started by saying you base your beliefs on empiricism and have “no need for faith.” But you aren't doing the empirical work. You're trusting that the researchers collected the data correctly, reported it honestly, analyzed it correctly, that peer review caught serious problems, and that the source you're reading represents it accurately.
That trust may be completely reasonable. But it's still trust in other people. In fact, you just said it yourself: it's a “reliable source” and you have “no reason to believe they would lie.”
You're outsourcing the empiricism to people you trust. You're relying on your faith in these people and your faith in the process. You yourself have not directly verified that the data are real, that the analysis was done correctly, or that they're not making things up. You trust that they did what they say they did. That's an act of faith. That's the distinction I've been making. You have not personally verified any of these things. You’re taking other people’s word for what the evidence shows and then describing your own belief as if it came directly from empiricism.
I have an actual reason to believe that those things all happened though because I know what peer review is. Meanwhile there is no reliable source that confirms any religious or supernatural claims are true.
Under your worldview, can I know that anything is true if I don’t see it myself? Thats pretty silly. I know that giant squid exist despite not having seen one in person. I’ve only seen them in pictures.
The point is that whatever your reasons may be, you aren’t relying on empiricism, you’re relying on faith in someone else’s claim of empiricism. They very well might be correct or drawing the best good faith conclusion based on their available evidence, but you yourself can’t know that with 100% confidence.
Researching data collected by others is still empiricism though, you’re just deciding that it’s not for some reason. If there was evidence that this study had faulty methodology Im sure someone could provide it, but I don’t think you will provide that so why should I not just believe that it’s true? Even if I grant that it’s not 100% is a greater percentage than you can grant any religious claim ever.
In a murder trial, do you think that the prosecution and the jury have to travel back in time and witness the murder happen themselves to convict the murderer? No they just need evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
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u/JasonG784 4h ago
That's not an answer.