De Waal states it plain

Josh: I've explained three times. If you think there is something about an explanation that isn't an assertion, then you're a lot dumber than I gave you credit for.
What I wrote (seriously, you don't read well when you get upset, go suck on your nubbie or something before coming back to this thread) is that we attempt to prove something false, and fail, and that proves it true. Alternatively, you can attempt to prove something true, and fail, but what you can't do is attempt to prove something true, and succeed. "Prove" simply doesn't work that way, in science. (Note that I have used it that way in this paragraph, despite this difficulty, because that's just something you have to do to use language. Don't let it confuse you, don't get hung up on it; that's a rabbit hole that leads to a scary place, TBH.)

I invite you, please, to go back and re-read my comments from the beginning, without that chevy-sized chip on your shoulder, get over the fact that SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET SAID YOU ARE LYING (!!!), and learn something from what I've tried to teach you. I'm not an authority on anything, but obviously you aren't either, so good luck. You can catch up with me at Pharyngula, or DailyKos (the tmax), or my miniblog on typepad. I'm done here since you haven't responded to any of my comments beyond those required to get your feelings hurt.

Thanks Josh. I agree with your gloss on my statement. "Being right" = "acting as if you know you are right".

Interestingly, PZ has had to institute some standards for eliminating those whose tone he and his minions do not like at Pharyngula. He is calling it the poo index.

Now there has been a large amount of black and white fallacy in this argument we are having on tone. Of course PZ allows that there are kinds of angry discourse that are not acceptable, at least on his living room carpet. And of course we moderationists (?) allow that one might get angry from time to time (one commenter even ignored the text you quote above in that very thread!). What we are arguing about is the strategic aspects.

"The issue is not whether or not God exists â which I find to be a monumentally uninteresting question defined, as it is, by the narrow parameters of monotheism â but why humans universally feel the need for supernatural entities."

I have a few remarks I'd like to make about this. First, it seems impossible that whether or not the universe was purposefully created by an outside force or not could be an "uninteresting question"; no other fact could possibly have more profound or universal implications. Second, humans don't "universally feel the need for supernatural entities."

Perhaps what Mr. de Waal meant to say was that human societies universally invent supernatural entities. His suggestion is that the "universal" nature of this invention leads to the question of whether such beliefs "underpin morality". This is very cart-before-the-horse; human morality (which comes, along with all other human motivations, from internally generated emotions, not deities) explains this "need" he thinks we have to invent a force to explain that motivation. Obviously, such explanations must be 'supernatural', since no natural explanation was known. But in light of modern science (something I think Socrates would be willing to admit is knowledge) knowing what actually explains those motivations (natural selection, neurobiology, and a dash of game theory suffice) makes the accomodationist (that's the proper term, Mr. Wilkins) approach pointless.

All of you who like to try to jump up and down on PZ should be aware that you're missing the mark. PZ doesn't ever try, hope, or want to debate, discuss with, or attempt to convince anyone of the lack of God. All of your "they're just so angry" masks the truth; it doesn't matter what people think about God, and in general Gnu Atheists are entirely uninterested in either the details or even the validity of their pet metaphors. The question is whether their beliefs should be imposed on anyone else, whether their concept of God is an appropriate motivation for political decisions, whether they're being honest about what they say, not whether their God is true or not. That turns all of your "I welcome a dialog with people willing to admit what they don't know" on its head. You don't want atheists to admit what we don't know, you want us to pretend we don't know things we do know.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

"PZ replied: Because religion is wrong all of the time.

Josh: Probably, but you might be wrong about that, too."

Probably. But can you be more specific about why you think he might be wrong? PZ claims religion is wrong all of the time. If you now counter, as you do, that he might be wrong about that then presumably you have in mind the specific instances when religion is right. Can you elaborate upon those instances?

"Josh: Acknowledging possibility of our own error is half of what defines 'skeptic.' Other half is about testing others' claims."

Precisely. Every true skeptic should admit that they might be wrong. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't be firm in their position unless someone convinces them otherwise. Of course I might be wrong. Please show me how or why.

"Josh: I'm not granting credibility to anything. I'm saying everyone is probably wrong about religion. Who does that make credible?"

No one. But you certainly make yourself sound a lot less credible than you really are. Once again, if you say everyone is probably wrong about religion without specifying exactly how they're wrong or where they're wrong or even what they're wrong about then the rest of us might as well say that everyone's probably right about religion without bothering to back up that claim.

Saikat: When I say that everyone is probably wrong about religion, I don't mean that I can correctly identify how they're wrong. PZ is a subset of everyone, which is why I say he is probably wrong about religion: everyone is.

Why is everyone probably wrong? Because the central claims of religion relate to empirically untestable claims. That means that the best methods we have for determining what is right or wrong about a claim cannot be applied to such claims. So we probably have wrong ideas because we have no robust way to eliminate them.

It's one thing to be firm in a position, especially one based in strong empirical evidence. It's another to assert no possibility of error, and to react angrily to the suggestion that error might exist, especially in a realm where error is undetectable by the most reliable means.

You say I make myself sound less credible than I am. I don't see why that should be true. Acknowledging the limits of my knowledge (and indeed of human knowledge) is hardly discreditable.

tmaxPA: "it seems impossible that whether or not the universe was purposefully created by an outside force or not could be an 'uninteresting question'; no other fact could possibly have more profound or universal implications."

Meh. The claim itself is untestable; a force that is by hypothesis outside of nature and natural laws is untestable. If the implications are empirically detectable, then we can detect them without the hypothesis. If the implications are untestable, then we're no better either way. In either case, the issue of whether god(s) exist(s) is uninteresting, because the interesting questions can be answered without answering that question.

"Perhaps what Mr. de Waal meant to say was that human societies universally invent supernatural entities." Perhaps, but there's a lot of evidence that humans have a tendency to create supernatural explanations, etc. I think his claim is valid, though it deserves the qualification that some humans can overcome that cognitive bias. He is not, however, claiming that morality comes from gods. He is following up on a piece about naturalistic origins of morality, for Pete's sake.

"You don't want atheists to admit what we don't know, you want us to pretend we don't know things we do know."

Your psychic powers are unimpressive. I don't think you know what you think you know, and in moments of honesty, folks like PZ tend to admit as much. Then they change their minds. It gets old.

Most religions -- including today's major religions -- have not imagined some abstract god beyond human interaction, but gods who have spoke from burning bushes, who have sent their angels/demi-gods to make pronouncements, forecast the future, or even wrestle wayward men, who have appeared in human form and performed miracles, etc. There is a great question for those religions why those gods have become so shy in modern times, when the empirical eye has improved. But I also find it interesting that scientists would defend these very religions by saying that their claims are inherently beyond all empirical inquiry. That might be true of Priestley's clockwork god. It definitely is not the case for Pope Benedict's god.

... one cannot simply dismiss a social phenomenon found in every major society.

By all means, let us allow free and open fora in which proponents and opponents can assess the pros and cons of rape, other forms of violence, alcoholism, child abuse, irrational taboos and demands of all kinds, and other ubiquitous pathologies.

There's plenty of room for reasoned discussion on both sides of each of these questions, right?

Mr. Butler;
No, there is not. If there were a God, of course, there would be, but since we live in a universe which is not subjective but is available for empirical examination, there is no 'discussion' necessary to agree that none of those things are ever good, because empirically there are never any repeatable benefits of those things occurring, and that is obvious. Unless, again, you believe in God; then it might not be the case.

Josh;

I think we're well illustrating the problems people have dealing with this argument. Like PZ, and New/Gnu Atheists, I use the term "knowledge" to mean something that occurs in the real world; empirical testing creates it. For you, the academic/accomodationist theologist/philosophers, you use the term to mean something that never actually occurs, but is only theoretically possible. All knowledge may be manipulated, we must suppose, by a "supernatural" entity, and so no knowledge ever ends up actually existing. It is a thoroughly untenable position, philosophically, but it has hung on for centuries simply because it provides cover for theological approaches.

"Your psychic powers are unimpressive. I don't think you know what you think you know, and in moments of honesty, folks like PZ tend to admit as much. Then they change their minds. It gets old."

I'm afraid I need no psychic powers, only reading comprehension skills. I know you are willing to question, whenever convenient, whether I know what I think I know. But this is where the philosophers and the scientists disagree, you see, this is why you can't ever understand how thoroughly PZ eats your lunch, or even perceive it accurately. To you, it looks like he's just making easy emotional points and avoiding the 'interesting questions'. Doesn't it?

But he isn't; he is simply using a conception of knowledge which allows such a thing as knowledge to exist. If all the interesting questions can be answered without knowing whether God exists, then, via Occam's Razor, we know for a fact that God does not exist. Scientists work on this basis of knowledge, and the result is technology. Philosophers reject this basis of knowledge, and the result is ignorance.

Even more ironically: William of Ockham was a theologian.

tmaxPA: As others have noted, Occam's razor doesn't get us to facts, though it is certainly a useful heuristic in the absence of factual basis for making distinctions. But it can be wrong.

Your characterization of my position is so far off base, indeed so far from anything that I've written or that would even make sense, that I see no point responding in detail.

You write "I'm afraid I need no psychic powers, only reading comprehension skills." Alas I think your problem may involve a lack of both, then. You wrote that I don't want what I say I want, which implies psychic powers or a failure of reading comprehension. Probably both.

"To you, it looks likeâ¦Doesn't it?" Partly. Not the last bit about "avoiding interesting questions." He's pursuing uninteresting questions, which is different.

And despite your apparently distaste for philosophers and philosophy, this whole discussion is entirely about philosophy, and is dependent on the work done by generations of philosophers. That's knowledge by any reasonable standards. The claim that god(s) don't exist can't be resolved scientifically, and thus, by your (unreasonable) standards, is not knowledge.

As others have noted, Occam's razor doesn't get us to facts[...]

Nothing gets us to facts. Now what?

[...]though it is certainly a useful heuristic in the absence of factual basis for making distinctions. But it can be wrong.

Can be yes. Provide the first shred of a scrap of a hint of evidence it is, in this case, and you will have succeeded in making your point, rather than mine.

Your characterization of my position is so far off base, indeed so far from anything that I've written or that would even make sense, that I see no point responding in detail.

I am afraid I'm forced to react as much to the character of your reactions as to your specific claims, so I apologize if I've made presumptions.

You write "I'm afraid I need no psychic powers, only reading comprehension skills." Alas I think your problem may involve a lack of both, then. You wrote that I don't want what I say I want, which implies psychic powers or a failure of reading comprehension. Probably both.

This kind of response is hackneyed and familiar. Unless you are claiming it is impossible for you to ever be mistaken or lie, I don't need special powers to claim that it is occurring in some particular instance. In this case, so that we are clear, I believe, and will be convinced to the contrary only by empirical evidence, that you are lying, that you do not, as you claim, want atheists to admit to not knowing things, but rather you want them to pretend to not know things they do, in fact, know. You state your expectations or desires untruthfully because you have no choice; while in the context of 'philosophy', you feel honor-bound to maintain a decidedly limited awareness, so to you it doesn't feel like a lie, just a pro-forma requirement of being 'philosophically serious'.

But we know, for a fact, as much as any other fact is known or could be known, that there is no God. If that is not conclusive enough for you (or is, as it could also be described, too conclusive for you) than that is fine, and you can say so, but it makes it clear that it is you, as a single particular individual, not as a knowledgeable representative of all philosophy for the last thousand years, demanding a higher degree of truth from this one fact, which you otherwise then claim is uninteresting.

To you, it looks likeâ¦Doesn't it?" Partly. Not the last bit about "avoiding interesting questions." He's pursuing uninteresting questions, which is different.

Not from out here, it isn't. From any perspective but your own rather crimped one (the accomodationist, or as you labeled it the 'moderationist' position) he is pursuing the interesting questions (those with answers) and you are simply claiming that only questions which cannot be answered can be interesting. Forgive us for suspecting that it may be a willful if not purposeful mechanism for intentionally avoiding answering any questions at all.

And despite your apparently distaste for philosophers and philosophy, [...]

It is frustration, born of simultaneous admiration and disappointment, not distaste at all. It is not coincidental that you read my use of the term as if it were not a good thing, but it is not the reason I used the term that way. Again let me point out, this is a matter of language and psychology, not psychic awareness.

[...]this whole discussion is entirely about philosophy, and is dependent on the work done by generations of philosophers.

Alas, it is not. This whole discussion is entirely about science, and how it relates to the generations of philosophers who have, for all their potential merits, steadfastly refused to accept the ability to know anything. You are, if I might borrow some imagery from biology, living fossils; a species of creature which, for all the potentially rampant evolution of your genotype, maintained almost exactly the same phenotype as your ancestral form. In this case, that ancestor would be Socrates. While the descendants of his work along the empirical line have become the most productive creatures in the ecosphere, the living fossils of philosophers do still continue to reproduce, if only in certain very limited niches.

That's knowledge by any reasonable standards.

I am forced, again, to disagree; centuries, millenia of philosophers have failed to provide 'knowledge' by any reasonable standard. That isn't to say they have in any way been remiss; the work done by philosophers does not have creating knowledge as its goal.

The claim that god(s) don't exist can't be resolved scientifically, and thus, by your (unreasonable) standards, is not knowledge.

I will repeat the central point of my argument. The claim that gods exist can be resolved scientifically, and has been, with universally negative results. Somehow, philosophers must come to grips with both that truth, and with the fact that it is not possible, using only the tools of philosophy, to differentiate that from being unable to resolve it. I suggest first ignoring everything any theologist ever said, and intensely studying the works of Karl Popper.

tmaxPA: First, why would you say "nothing gets us to facts"? Lots of things do. Not Occam's razor, though.

"I'm forced to react as much to the character of your reactions as to your specific claims" No you aren't. You choose to do so, which is unfortunate.

"But we know, for a fact, as much as any other fact is known or could be known, that there is no God."

No, we really don't. Show me a God-o-meter, or any way to falsify the claim that God exists. Even PZ agrees that you can't test the claim. That makes it different from other facts, which can be evaluated from empirical testing.

Skipping past the evidence-free allegations of lying, we getâ¦

"as you labeled it the 'moderationist' position" I can't find where I've ever used that word. Yet you accuse me of lying?

Then: "he [PZ] is pursuing the interesting questions (those with answers) and you are simply claiming that only questions which cannot be answered can be interesting."

Seriously, dude, your reading comprehension is awful. That's literally the opposite of my position. I'm interested in empirical reality, not untestable metaphysics. PZ has chosen a different path. You insist that metaphysics really does get you answerable questions, but that doesn't change the fact that my position has always been that the only interesting questions are those which can be answered, exactly the opposite of what you now write. Again, reading comprehension and intellectual honesty do not seem to be your strong suit.

You seem to be under the misapprehension that I'm a philosopher, or am defending philosophy in some broad sense. I'm neither. I'm a biologist, though I have indeed read the works of philosopher Karl Popper, and of philosophers of science since the 1920s, too. I note that Popper held that metaphysics was an unfalsifiable realm, thus distinct from science. Good to see that your inability to represent others' ideas accurately is not restricted to this blog. Your interest in knowledge is charming, but I'll note that all the knowledge we have about knowledge comes from philosophy, not from science.

tmaxPA: First, why would you say "nothing gets us to facts"? [...]

Let me save us both some time, because again I've gotten you all upset, and so you're just getting madder and madder without making much sense. If you are interested in questions with answers, then you are no different from PZ. He is not saying that the question of whether there is a God has no answer, he is saying that it has an answer, and it always has; the answer is "No".
It is not that it is a question which cannot fall to empirical falsification. It is that it is a question which has fallen to empirical falsification, so universally in fact that it is philosophically difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish it from being unfalsifiable!

I brought up Occam's Razor not because I think it conclusively ends the discussion, but because it conclusively prevents the discussion from getting started; the claim that there is a God (or even that there could be a God) is one that can, but always hasn't, been supported with evidence. It is therefore a false claim, because it requires (it doesn't allow, which would make the consideration of Occam's Razor optional, but instead requires, making it mandatory) that an extra entity be postulated without any reason whatsoever for it.

tmaxPA: Shocking, I know, that accusing someone of lying with no evidence to back the accusation up would make the accused a upset.

I know that you think Occam's razor renders theism false. But Occam's razor doesn't render things false. At best, it renders some explanations for certain phenomena more likely. Repeating your same bad argument doesn't make it a better argument, it just shows that you don't know what you're talking about.

"If you are interested in questions with answers, then you are no different from PZ. He is not saying that the question of whether there is a God has no answer, he is saying that it has an answer, and it always has; the answer is 'No'."

PZ and I agree that question with answers are interesting, and that atheism and theism are unfalsifiable claims, but we disagree about whether some questions without answers are interesting. Untestable claims are unanswerable, and thus the debate between atheism and theism is not interesting to me. I'm not saying no one can be interested by it, just that I'm not, and I think too many people take the debate too seriously.

Shocking, I know, that accusing someone of lying with no evidence to back the accusation up would make the accused a upset.

I explained already, I have plenty of evidence; your words and my awareness of psychology. Evidence you don't think should be conclusive. But then, I never claimed it was conclusive. But when I said you were mistaken or lying (because what you said wasn't, demonstrably, true, and those exhaust the major alternative explanations for such a fact) you seized on the possibility that I "accused you of lying" like a fair damsel seeking a feinting couch. I'm beginning to question your seriousness in engaging in this discussion.

I know that you think Occam's razor renders theism false.

I know that Occam's Razor does render theism false. You have yet to provide any reason to think otherwise.

But Occam's razor doesn't render things false.

Nothing ever renders anything false. What happens is, you try and render it true, and fail. For rhetorical convenience, however, we can dispense with those complications. Until you try to quibble.

At best, it renders some explanations for certain phenomena more likely.

Which, not coincidentally, happens to be the only truth that exists, so far as can be demonstrated or for that matter imagined.

Repeating your same bad argument doesn't make it a better argument, it just shows that you don't know what you're talking about.

Your trying, and failing, to refute it is what makes it a better argument. So far all you've done is claim it can be refuted, which isn't even an argument yet.

PZ and I agree that question with answers are interesting, and that atheism and theism are unfalsifiable claims,[...]

Here is where your error lies. PZ does not claim that atheism (or theism) is an unfalsifiable claim; he claims that it is an unfalsified claim, and that hypothetical occurrences fail to be evidence. I know he states it in a more confusing way, as if to say "you cannot provide evidence." He's just being confrontational, because that's PZ's way. What he is actually arguing is "you cannot provide convincing evidence." Within the discussion the issue gets lost, because frankly most people can't even get started with difficult epistemological paradoxes like this.

[...]but we disagree about whether some questions without answers are interesting. Untestable claims are unanswerable, and thus the debate between atheism and theism is not interesting to me.

Here it is again. The claims are not untestable; it is PZ's conviction which is untestable, because nobody can provide him any actual Evidence along the lines they're hypothesizing. There is no debate between atheism and theism, that's the point. Atheism won, thousands of years ago. PZ doesn't engage in that debate, that's what he's saying, not that the debate isn't interesting. (It's only interesting to any atheist in a kind of "pile on" way, which is why so much of it sounds as if it would be bullying, if the religious rather than the atheists were the suppressed minority.)

I'm not saying no one can be interested by it, just that I'm not, and I think too many people take the debate too seriously.

You've explained that point well, and I will humbly admit that I misread what you, and perhaps De Waal, meant by "interesting". I might suggest you use the term "unproductive", as it is more specific as to why you would find it uninteresting, and, rather than invoke a kind of scorn on those who might think it is interesting even if unproductive, it underscores the individual nature of your judgment. As I pointed out, PZ doesn't think it is "interesting" in the way De Waal seems to think he thinks it is. That is exactly what PZ was saying when he pointed out that he wasn't interested in the discussion of what evidence there could be, and in doing that got so many people (De Waal included) interested in a topic they claim they are not interested in.

Tmax01, writing "I know that Occam's Razor does render theism false" and then "Nothing ever renders anything false" shortly afterward is inconsistent.

JJ: I'll agree that, stripped of any context, they appear inconsistent. Something about consistency and hobgoblins comes to mind, I'm afraid. Substitute "proves" instead of "render" in the second instance, if you must.

Tmax: You didn't explain why you think I'm lying. At best, you asserted. And since your knowledge seems uniformly lacking in every field you've discussed thus far, citing your "awareness of psychology" to prove I must be lying is decidedly unconvincing.

For instance, you insist (shortly after citing Karl Popper as a good guide to epistemology) that we cannot falsify claims, only prove them true. This, like everything else you've written here, is 100% backwards.

HIBT?

Rosenau: "Show me a God-o-meter, or any way to falsify the claim that God exists. Even PZ agrees that you can't test the claim."

I'd be careful here.

Falsifying the claim that "God" exists is problematic because there are multiple possible beings with the label "God." The God of the fundamentalists, the one who supposedly made the world 6,000 years ago, is obviously not only falsifiable but falsified -- as Peter Hess would readily attest. The deist God is, on the other hand, unfalsifiable, and even the God of the Catholics is probably unfalsifiable in practice if not in principle.

PZ, on the other hand, is making a far stronger claim, namely that there is no possible evidence that could show that a god existed, that there is no equivalent to a "fossil rabbits in the Precambrian" for atheism. Considering that PZ has badly misinterpreted challenges to that claim, I would not recommend relying on PZ here. I don't think he's even come close to making any sort of cogent defense of his position.

"Why is everyone probably wrong? Because the central claims of religion relate to empirically untestable claims. That means that the best methods we have for determining what is right or wrong about a claim cannot be applied to such claims."

What exactly do you mean by 'determining what is right or what is wrong about a claim'? Any given religious claim (resurrection, for example) is pretty well-defined. The current unavailability of methods that would test the validity of the claim does not change the fact that in the end, that particular claim is either true or false (either someone rose from the dead or they didn't). Are you saying that any given claim might have some part of it right and other parts wrong?

"So we probably have wrong ideas because we have no robust way to eliminate them."

If we do have a robust way of eliminating an idea then surely those who have been holding the view that the idea was wrong to begin with would be vindicated. How does that support your claim that everyone is probably wrong?

I'll just add that even if your aim is to be right, the best way forward is via reasoned discourse, not anger.

Perhaps.
Is criticising something the same as being angry?
Is the use of sarcasm the same as being angry?
Is the use of colorful language the same as being angry?
Is being blunt same as being angry?
Is being passionate the same as being angry?

One of De Waal's lines stood out

I yearn for the ideal of a society .....but one is defended by those who do not agree

So he should be defending the so called new atheists to arrive at his ideal?

Because the central claims of religion relate to empirically untestable claims. That means that the best methods we have for determining what is right or wrong about a claim cannot be applied to such claim

Perhaps. But will you apply the same standard to every empirically untestable claim? What if a religious nut says God will not let global warming harm the earth (unless that is his wish! in which case nothing you do can stop it). Will you then discard the evidence you have because the counter claim is untestable till its too late? Or homeopathy works if you truly believe in it or it works as long as you don't try double blind experiments on it?
And of course you do deliberately ignore the claims of religion that are testable.

As others have noted, Occam's razor doesn't get us to facts, though it is certainly a useful heuristic in the absence of factual basis for making distinctions. But it can be wrong.

Name one single instance in the history of knowledge where two theories made identical predictions and the less parsimonious one turned out to be correct.

I already know that you can't, so how about you invent a plausible scenario in which the less parsimonious explanation is correct.

If you can't, then I allow you an opportunity to retract the claim I'm highlighting.

By the way, as a shrill, strident gnu atheist, I didn't find much of anything to disagree with in either De Waal article except that he thought it wasn't obvious that people could be moral without belief in God. But the existence of moral atheist proves that people can be moral without belief in God. I suspect he meant position the question as some sort of grandiose theory-of-history thing since he seems to be an atheist and probably wouldn't assert that he is therefore immoral, but he wasn't terribly clear on this point.

And yet, despite agreeing with De Waal, I still disagree with you.

You've had so many bright people explain the GNU atheist position to you so clearly. How do you still not get it? I'm starting to think you're missing it willfully.

Hint: Socrates would probably be on our side.

This ongoing discussion of "tone" makes me scratch my head.

I'm not all that concerned with conflicts between atheists who want to boldly assert there are no gods, versus the atheists who would prefer not to upset the theists.

On the other hand, I'm very much concerned with keeping my neighbors from engaging in sectarian religious indoctrination in public schools. I'm concerned with Christian lawmakers trying, at every level, to codify their own peculiar religious views into law. I'm concerned that religious bigotry against one particular minority religion has been used for a decade to whip my neighbors into a frenzy so intense, that some of them have taken to outright fascist violence.

Some of my neighbors aren't going to be swayed by rational argument, polite or not, no matter what. Of the others, some can be reached by polite, rational, philosophical discourse. Others will listen to razor-sharp satire that ridicules religion and all its adherents. I wouldn't dismiss either approach.

Name one single instance in the history of knowledge where two theories made identical predictions and the less parsimonious one turned out to be correct.

There has never been an instance in the history of knowledge where two theories made identical predictions and either one turned out to be correct, at least on scientific grounds. Theories with identical predictions can't be distinguished.