I'd say they think they are, but the reality is they are not.

"We know mitosis exists, so therefor Jesus is the one true god"

"We know mitosis exists, so therefor Allah is the one true god"

"We know mitosis exists, so therefor Yahweh is the one true god".

 What a lot of people miss, I think, is that not all "facts" are subject to "interpretation."  I use scare quotes because both of those words can cause lots of problems if we don't use them very specifically.

Did Jesus exist as a historical person?

This question is open to interpretation.  Why?  Because there are a lot of legitimate ways to ask the question, and each has its own set of complications.  Before we say yes or no, we need to know what we mean by "Jesus."  For him to have existed, is it required that only one prophet/messiah figure was responsible for the beginning of Christianity?  If there were several figures, which one do we call Jesus?  Does the person's name have to resemble Jesus?  

All of these questions are fine, and depending on an individual's answer, the answer to the original question will change.  This is ok.  History is a story within a perspective.  It's actually damn near impossible to come up with something we could call a "scientific description of history."  The reason is that any action in history depends on subjective motivations, beliefs, and other human discrepancies.  Sure, there are limits to interpretations which could be called valid -- Nuclear weapons have been detonated in two Japanese cities, and lots of people did die.  You can't "interpret" that out of existence.  The explosions and detonations are a matter of scientific, empirical fact.

With matters of science, empiricism, and logic, there is far less room for interpretation.  What is the boiling point of lead?  2022K.   This is not open to interpretation.  Does evolution happen?  Yes.  What is the best way to describe the process of gradual genotype change over time?  Well... that's open to interpretation.  Given the boiling point of lead, is it the best metal to use for this industrial application?  Interpretation.

The best way to look at it is this:  Where human desires, goals, and motivations are involved, there's almost always room for interpretation of the facts, and sometimes the facts themselves are quite nebulous.  Did George Bush know 9/11 was going to happen?  Even if we had a video recording of his entire life for the previous month, we still might not be able to definitively answer the question.  With matters of material reality, there is seldom room for interpretation.  This block is made of aluminum.  That substance is a polymer.  The reaction we just saw was exothermic.  No interpretation.

Finally, in a trick of language, we can (and often do) interpret data from scientific experiments in an effort to establish scientific "fact."  The thing is, this isn't the same use of the word as when we interpret the question of Jesus historical existence.  There are rigorous and methodical ways to interpret raw data in a scientific context.  If you do it wrong, you will not pass peer review, and your experiment will be tossed onto the trash heap.

Did you read my whole post?  I addressed this at the end.

No.  Because there is already an existing, precise, and non-negotiable scientific definition of "boiling point" which will not change unless we discover that we've been atrociously wrong about pretty much... chemistry.

Historical questions often involve terms which don't have scientifically rigorous definitions, so we need to specify which of many possible usages we're employing.  Go to a thousand different universities and ask ten thousand scientists what the boiling point of lead is, and you're going to get the same answer, and they're going to all know precisely what "boiling point" means.

Your ignorance doesn't alter the reality of the existence of a scientific, non-negotiable definition.  If you try to "interpret" boiling point, you'd just be displaying ignorance, not offering a scientific interpretation of data.

Horseshit.

What "historical Jesus" means is precisely what historians are still arguing about today.  The problem is that there is not, and has never been, a consensus.  Most published historians claim consensus, but for some reason, nobody can ever demonstrate it.

Furthermore, consensus is not even remotely similar to scientific accuracy.  If a thousand scientists get together and say the boiling point of lead is 1000K, they're all wrong, regardless of the consensus.  Peer review in science is the process of applying the non-negotiable standards of scientific rigor to published findings.  It's not the same as asking a thousand historians if they agree with the consensus opinion of a historical interpretation.

You know, don't you, that history can never acheive the same degree of certainty as scientific experiment, right?   You also know that different interpretations of who Jesus was change the standards for what and who would qualify as a "historical Jesus," right?  Since we have no definitive evidence... it's... speculation.  Even if it's a very well backed guess, it's still a guess, and there's no way to prove it like we can prove the melting point of lead.

That's so absurd that I can only ignore it completely.

Are you trying to get at a historical Jesus with this thread?  If so, I'm going to bow out.  I hate this topic.  Are you trying to say there's no difference between historical "fact" and scientific "fact"?  I can't argue with that kind of ignorance.  Are you trying to say that science and history are equally "interpretable"?  If so...  well... you should spend some time doing science in a lab.  

Um.... no.  "The boiling point of lead is 2022K" is a statement of fact.  It's not an interpretation of anything.  There's no explanation of meaning and there's no attempt to clarify.  Nothing is being interpreted.  It's just what happens.

Seriously?  You don't know what boiling means?   Have you ever seen a kettle?

Look at what you just wrote, you just referred to the claim as a "statement" of fact,  a "statement" is an expression of facts, a definite or clear expression of something in speech or writing. Lead boils at 2022K is an explanation of an observation. It is an interpretation of that observation.

To put it to you more clearly, if you were to say to someone who didn't know, that the boiling point of lead is 2022K, he can ask you why is this so. You would have to give him an explanation, an interpretation of certain observations that make it so. 

Well, I'm used to hearing the word boiling in my everyday, to mean "very hot", often used in reference to water coming out of a sink, a shower head, even for a hot day. If you asked me if i knew it in a stricter sense, the best assumption I could give you would be when a liquid is so hot bubbles form, but don't take my word for it, if you asked me for an even stricter sense in which science uses the term an hour or so ago, I'd say I'm not too sure, because I'd admit to my ignorance, and that I would actually have to google it, to tell you for sure. 

But perhaps I'm wrong, and perhaps you can tell me the difference between a statement of the facts, and interpretation of the facts? A statement concerning of the results of an observation, and interpretation of the results of an observation?

Well played, Mr. H.

Nail. On. Hit. Head. The. The.

Solve the word scramble for the answer to the cryptic puzzle..

Are you trying to be a fucktard?  Because you're being a fucktard.  Would you have preferred that I reprint an entire textbook so that you have the complete course of human knowledge regarding all aspects of boiling with regard to lead?

Or... can you be a grown up and admit that the concept I was portraying is quite straightforward.  Within X circumstances with Y variables, lead boils according to real, constant principles existing in the material universe.  These principles are not open to interpretation.  They are constant principles which exist within definite parameters.

I'm done talking to you.

People are not entitled to their own set of facts.  People are not always even entitled to their own interpretation of those facts.  For example courts of law exists to chose one interpretation of facts over another.  They exists to decided which interpretation is "correct".

Lets consider an example. Its a bit extreme but I think it shows my point.  Lets imagine that there is a man who thinks that everyone who is wearing red is going to try and kill him.  This man shoots another man who is waring red and claims that it is self defense.  This man interpreted the fact that the other man was wearing red to mean that his life was in danger.  Are you going to say that everyone should be able to interpret facts as they see fit and that therefore this man's actions or justified, or are you going to judge this mans actions based of your own interpreting of facts?  Sometimes societies allow other people to have there own interpretations of facts and act on those interpretations however they see fit, but this is not always true.  Some interpretations of facts simply aren't allowed. 

Dude, you gave me a list of names for the Jesus Project, not a list of names of historians who all question the existence of a historical Jesus. When you can go through the list and find me the names of historians, and not fellows of the Jesus project who have nothing to do with history at all, such as Angie McAllister McQuaig, and Frank ZIndler, who claim themselves to be mythicist you let me know. Let me guess, you found like two? The hack who works at an uncredited university founded by a prosperity gospel preacher, and a dude who claims that Jesus eating meat on the passover with his disciples is a ripped straight out of Homer's Odyssey? Yea, the Jesus Project sure sounds promising, with great minds such as these, why wouldn't it be. 

Did I say anything about Homer? I'm sure Historians are more certain that Barack Obama is the current president of the US, than they are on the existence of any historical persons in the pre-modern world.  But that was never my point.

The holocaust happened, Obama is the 44th president are all historical claims, that we are as certain of as any claim in the natural sciences. You do concede this point right?

I never claimed that all historical claims, such as Homer existing hold as much certainty.

Dude you distinction is rather superficial. I'm going to tell you the difference, or at least the percieved difference between the two. History particulary when dealing with the pre-modern words deals far more with thoughts, motives, intentions, of persons and communities in it's reconstructions, that with what most of us are used to in the natural sciences. It as much of a guess work, as any sort of scientific exploration into the similar sorts of motivations, such as evolutionary psychology. 

You made the mistake of throwing around claims such as multiple authors, when in fact such claims in history are based on solid arguments. If you familiarize yourself with textual criticism you would know this. If you believe there were multiple authors to particular composition, you make a case for it, in fact such cases have long been made. 

You're making even mores superficial distinctions. History also works by taking into account a wealth of raw data, and making a proximation of the past. Scientific claims of our biological history doesn't work much differently. Our validation of claims of common ancestry by noting odd, or distinctive similarities in our DNA with other species, is not all together different in how we evaluate a composition for a number of authors, and filter out distinctive styles, patterns, words, thoughts, ideas belonging to a single body, from others. It how historians derived the documentary hypothesis, the multiple authors of the penteauch, and how historians claim that the Christ reference in Josephous is an interpolation. Fewer people argue against the interpolation of Josephous than they do against common descent.  

 And when we use a term such as certainty, it's a representation of how much confidence we have in a particular claim or finding, in the accuracy of our testing methods, in the reasoning of our assumptions, in the analysis of our peers, the reliability of our equipment, the workman ship of those that manufactured them. The confidence in the findings of those that proceeded us, etc..etc..etc.. When you claim that the boiling point of led is 2022K, i'm pretty sure your confidence here is not based on you repeating the experiment, but rather is based on your confidence in the findings of a consensus. 

Now, I'm personally more certain, in saying that Jesus existed, than I am in claiming that the boiling point of led is 2022K. For the latter, I never conduced the experiment, and if I were to accept it, it would be based on your word, and the words of the few hits i get on a google search. 

When it comes to Jesus, I can say I'm far more certain, because I've evaluated much of the data myself, studying the methodology, can apply it myself, I can take a part the criticism.  I'm less reliant on the opinions of experts, than I am in accepting the boiling point of led. 

Atonedude can you do me a favor, define interpretation, and then apply it to exclude the definition of boiling point. I'm using interpretation to mean an "explanation", is this an improper usage of the word? 

I'll turn to the encylopedia:

An interpretation is an explanation of the meaning of some object  of attention. 

Is a claim that the boiling point of lead is 2022K fit into this defintion of an interpretation? Is it, or is it not an explanation of the meaning of an observation (the object of attention)?

I'll give it a bash.

I have a chemical in my lab called paraquat.  This chemical changes colour in an oxygen free environment when exposed to UV light.  At a known concentration of paraquat, and a known intensity of light, you can record how quickly the colour changes.  Paraquat is a chloride salt (Pa⁺Cl^-).  We can perform an ion exchange and turn it into an iodide salt (Pa⁺I^-).  When we perform the same experiment with the iodide salt we see that the colour change is slower than the one observed with the choride.  Now there are a couple of ways to interpret this data:

1)  The heavy ion effect is quenching the excited state of the paraquat and removing its ability to become a coloured radical.

2)  The presence of the iodide ion has altered the electronic structure of the compound in such a way that it no longer absorbs as much UV light.

Both of these are interpretations of the data.  They're both possible and we won't know the proper answer without further investigation.

We know that liquids boil.  That's a fact.  Lots of experiments were performed in years past that had to be interpreted to define the specifics of this process but it's a well understood fact now.  If you heat lead to 2022K it turns from liquid to gas.  Thus, lead boils at 2022K.  There's nothing else that could possible be happening.  It's a fact.  No interpretation required.  Any other use of the word is equivocation as Hamby has stated.

Actually quoted boiling points are most commonly associated with the most common forms of the element or compound in question.

And, in regards to the section I've highlighted, you've said "let's call it" as if there's any other definition of boiling.  What else could you call it?  Oh, and please, don't start on "well it's actually the point at which the vapour pressure of a liquid equals atmospheric pressure" as if that means something different.  It doesn't.

Pushing to the ridiculous eh?  Like splitting hairs over 0.15 of a degree on a Kelvin scale in the thousands?  Though, if you're going to split hairs on something at least get your numbers right.

Celsius = 1748.85 - 1748.88

Farenheit = 3179.93 - 3179.984

Kelvin = 2021.85 - 2021.88

The Kelvin and Celsius scales are tied together by a value of 273.  If you're going to list them together they have to match.

Except this isn't remotely tied to the question of boiling point at hand, is shockingly poor logic, and is utlimately a strawman.

Just because the boiling point of a substance can be altered doesn't make the statement that it boils at a certain temperature untrue.  That statement is a fact.  There's a presupposition in that statement that we're talking about normal conditions.  To bring special and unusual conditions into it - conditions which our current imaginary layman wouldn't consider - does not reduce the truth value of our statement.

In your example above you've change situation.  You're not addressing whether something boils at a given temperature, you're asking whether an observed material, with no extra data, is the compound you suspect it is based upon your knowledge of boiling points.  That's when you start to interpret what you're seeing.  It's not the same question and doesn't apply to our statement on lead.

What he is saying, is that there is only one correct interpretation of it. You can claim it is magical ants that cause lead to turn to gas, or faeries or pixies, but your interpretation (rendering, translation) of events, is still not correct.

Basically, someone who can't speak latin or hebrew showing you something they translated from latin to hebrew means nothing. They have an interpretation of it, maybe they created patterns where there were none...(some of the letters repeating must mean they liked pie) However, it doesn't make it valid in any way. Worse, if we have the correct translation with examples of usage in a lot of evidence.....well, lets just say that baseless claims don't hold up well to scrutiny, no matter how many people were convinced the text said "we like pie".

Just because you have an interpretation doesn't mean it is correct. To assume it is a "fact" is faulty, because then you would be saying it is "fact" the text said "we like pie". You could also say it is "fact" that Scientology is true, or "fact" that the moon goddess bestows homosexuality upon a chosen few to spread wisdom of design amongst the people.

I think ClockCat has hit the nail on the head - there's a bit of confusion on the language here, which I'll accept responsibility for.

The argument, in my reading, was that historical science were as rigorous/valid as the physical sciences because both relied on interpretations of observed data.  The point that Hamby was making, and that I mangled with clumsy language, is that much of history is still open to interpretation, whereas much of the physical sciences aren't.

No one is denying that data has to be interpreted in science.  That's what my example with paraquat was supposed to prove.  The argument is that, in the physical sciences, there are many things which are no longer open to interpretation, such as the boiling point of lead.

You said:

That's not quite true.  It's not "a" interpretation, it's the only intepretation.   We don't even need to use the phrase "intepretation".  It is a fact.  Let's do a thought experiment and assume we know almost nothing.

We have a pool of molten lead, a heater, and a method of measuring temperature.  We notice that every time T gets to 2022K the lead begins to bubble and even begins to disappear!  We repeat this experiment a thousand times and keep seeing the same thing.  What does this mean?  What's going on here?  We need to interpret the data...

[pause]

For this I'm going with Websters definition

Interpret

1.  To explain the meaning of

2.  To conceive the significance of

3.  To present or coneptualize the meaning of by means of art and criticism.

4.  To translate

[/pause]

... so what are our possible interpretations of what we're seeing?  I'll go with two possibilities:

1.  We know that bubbles are formed by gas so it could be that the heat is forcing trapped gas to the surface, allowing it to escape, and the lead is contracting into the free space, thus explaining the apparent shrinkage.

2.  We know that simple liquids like water undergo a phase transition from liquid to gas at high temperature, specifically at the point that the vapour pressure above the liquid equals atmospheric pressure.

So we measure the mass of our pan containing the lead and the pressure in the head space above it when we perform our experiment again.  What do you know - the pan loses mass and the pressure in the head space increases!  It looks like our second interpretation was correct.  Further experiments conclude that this is the only possible interpretation.  Thus the statement "lead boils at 2022K" is no longer referred to as an interpretation of the observed facts; it is referred to as a fact because there's nothing left to be explained.  There are no holes or unexplored areas.  There's nothing to interpret anymore.

Of course, if you ask me "why does lead boil at that temperature" or "why do liquids boil" then I would run you through the data and could tell you what interpretations led us to this fact.

History isn't so clear cut.  History has lots of holes and areas demanding explanation, even in periods that we claim to know quite well!  Much of history is still open to interpretation because there are still lots of possible explanations of events based on the little evidence we have.

This is ridiculous and you know it.

1.  Why would I turn round point at it and say "see?" with no prior explanation.

2.  You know what a thermometer is so to somehow see it as an ambiguous glass stick filled with red liquid is preposterous.

3.  You shoot yourself in the foot by saying "you show me something in a pot that's about to start boiling".  So you know it's about to boil before I've said anything.... interesting. 

You may need an explanation of why I'm doing this, but if you saw a thermometer at temperature X with bubbles forming in the liquid you'd know that it was boiling.  No explanation required.  

  I really like your responce . This is more of what I was looking for.

My responce  is tied to the question in a simple way- Facts are not the problem. Presumptions and unaccepting concepts are the problem. Limiting the facts about boiling Lead made it easy to run off topic and still tell the truth. This time on purpose and to prove a point
When Ken G wrote” Are Believers entitled to their own set of FACTS”
I interpret the statement as to a limited set of facts on any given situation. A layman on any subject can be manipulated by limiting Facts. It is not a practice used just by Bible believers and is done in the science fields. Data (fact) manipulation is not as uncommon as I would like to believe.

To get back on topic- Are Believers entitled to their own set of FACTS - not really. Unless you just want to be ridiculous.
Limiting a set of Facts  allows anyone on any subject to believe stupid.

"thatonedude

Polite or not, he's right. There exists a precise definition of "boiling point" and his informal reference to it stands. There is no interpretation involved. Appealing to informal or incomplete terminology changes nothing in this respect"

  Only if you don't know the difference

I know what you're getting it, so I won't be too picky with your examples here, but for anything in science to be considered a fact it must be reproducible by anyone.  If it's something that's been done by 6 people only, and with only one type of equipment, then someone somewhere is going to try it with different equipment*.  The sort of things you're talking about are always considered in experiment and in the reporting of results.

*In fact there have been recent examples of this.  A group in japan claimed to have cracked water-splitting and when someone else found nothing using an identical experimental set-up the japanese results were shelved.

But these things are recent history.  We have eye-wtinesses to these events and we live in a more studious time, where lots of information is recorded.  When we talk about events that happened 2000 years ago it's not so clear-cut.

I presume you're referring to the Milgram experiment.

For a start the Milgram experiment is one of social psychology, not necessarily evolutionary psychology.  I wish people would stop throwing that title around as if it applied to all psychological experiments.

Your interpretation of the data is flawed on a couple of levels.  Firstly, your interpretation is based on what you believe about human psychology, not on any experimental observations of your own or tied to the Milgram experiment.  Secondly, you also ignore the sub-discussion of the Milgram experiment - as so many people often do - that the majority of the test subjects displayed high degrees of tension and obvious revulsion at what was going on.  Even when making statements such as "This is senseless" or "Oh God, let's stop it", as was the case with one visibly traumatised businessman, the subjects would still continue on when told "You have no other choice you must go on"¹.  The sensible conclusions from this is that obedience to an authority figure was the driving factor, especially as every effort had been made to remove obligation to the authority figure.

Milgrams interpretation was a scientific one, yours is not.

Going way off topic - it annoys me that so many people keep bringing this experiment up.  The assumption that so many people seem to make is that the subject was sat in a room pressing buttons and the experiments simply prodded him to go higher and that's all they recorded.  This blatantly isn't true and misconceptions of it, due to its evocative nature, have fuelled too many arguments.  Milgram himself admitted that the paper was a failure.  It was his intention that this paper would act as a model for future experiments into the study of authority.  Instead, in his words, it became "more a subject of citation than of replication".  People talk about the results of the experiment as if that's all there was to it.  Milgram superceded the experiment with others later on and much more study has been done in this area.

There's no argument here.  More of science is clear cut, and is demonstrable tens and hundreds of years after the first experiments.  I never argued that all of science was clear cut.  No-one did.  The point was that history is much more open to interpretation than the majority of science.