To: Dimensio; unlearner
But without any supporting information to justify making the conjecture in the first place, it's still fundamentally worthless to science. That it is falsifiable is meaningless if you still don't have any actual evidence to justify making the statement in the first place. I can make plenty of hypothetical statements that are potentially falsifiable. That doesn't make them meritious of scientific inquiry.
That's an excellent point - unlearner's hypothesis fails to address the evidence. That's the first test of a hypothesis - before any serious study can be made, it must first address the evidence that we already have.
2,918 posted on
12/31/2005 1:14:39 PM PST by
highball
("I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." -- Thomas Jefferson)
To: highball; Dimensio
"unlearner's hypothesis fails to address the evidence."
The evidence we have is life. Look around. There are no competing theories or even hypotheses (meeting the minimal standard of demarcation) from which or within which to work.
This just underscores my point that the demarcation of science is a philosophical question - a matter of opinion, and one which changes to suit the needs of ID opponents.
For years opponents of creationism complained that it does not AND CANNOT meet the criteria of falsification. Endless talk of testability. Endless talk of what distinguishes science from other types of epistemology.
"before any serious study can be made, it must first address the evidence that we already have."
If that were the case, science would have never begun. There would be no starting point. Unless the existence of life is a suitable starting point, then the origin of life is outside the scope of science.
Are you arguing that it is possible to create a hypothesis for the origin of life via deductive reasoning based on evolutionary theory and working backward? I have never heard of a hypothesis being formulated through deductive reasoning. I will not say it is impossible, but I would like at least one example.
(This is a major problem of common descent. It tries to deduce earlier events through extrapolation even though it does not have one of the essential data points - namely the origin of life.)
Deductive reasoning generally takes place at the prediction phase of the scientific method, not when hypothesizing. The first step of the scientific method requires observing, measuring, quantifying data in order to begin analyzing it. But life has never been observed to originate at any time or place. The only thing to observe is its existence.
The underlying processes of replication and reproduction might play a role or they might not. We have know way of knowing until we actually observe life originating.
Your argument appears to be a round about way of saying we shouldn't try to observe anything because nothing has been observed.
My assertion can be applied to any experiment which results in life originating. It meets the minimal standards of a hypothetical statement.
2,944 posted on
01/02/2006 12:41:24 PM PST by
unlearner
(You will never come to know that which you do not know until you first know that you do not know it.)
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