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To: spunkets
" Every single scientific theory that has been shown to be inaccurate, had great evidence behind it"

Examples?

Lamarckism

Newtonian physics

pre-atomic chemistry

pre-DNA cell biology

All of these were solid, based on what was known, until something previously unknown was added.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7915 "Most scientific papers are probably wrong"

Climatology has the weakness of being unable to validate its theories. There are two uses of the word theory; a supposition which is not backed by observation is known as a conjecture, and if backed by observation it is a hypothesis. Climatology's observations are in fact so weak given the breadth of what is known to be inaccessible, that climatological theories can't rise above supposition. I like testable theories and reproducible results, if I'm going to change my life based on a theory.

58 posted on 11/17/2006 12:56:53 PM PST by SampleMan (Do not dispute the peacefulness of Islam, so as not to send Muslims into violent outrage.)
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To: SampleMan
Lamarckism was a hypothesis, never a theory.

Newtonian physics is a special case of General Reletivity in regions of space with a low energy density. IOWs the space is flat, so the equations of GR reduce to Newton's. They do so, because the curvature is so close to zero, it can be ignored.

"pre-atomic chemistry... pre-DNA cell biology"

I have no idea what these mean, but obviously they did not involve theory.

"All of these were solid, based on what was known, until something previously unknown was added."

The only "solid" one you gave was Newton's theory, which survives in the limiting case of low energy density space, where the space is flat. Notice that the old theory survives as a limiting case, as I said. That's

" Climatology has the weakness of being unable to validate its theories."

Wrong. The theories involved are well validated. Any weakness involves modeling. That involves making sure the model is an accurate representation of the reality modeled.

"There are two uses of the word theory; a supposition which is not backed by observation is known as a conjecture, and if backed by observation it is a hypothesis."

Wrong in both cases. A theory is a hypothesis with a mathematical formulation, supported by observations. That is the only meaning of the word.

"Climatology's observations are in fact so weak given the breadth of what is known to be inaccessible, that climatological theories can't rise above supposition."

Wrong. You obviously don't know what's involved, let alone understand it. The only problems that could arise are the accuracy of the model, or your failure to know and understand the statistical nature of the model's results.

"I like testable theories and reproducible results, if I'm going to change my life based on a theory."

You didn't know what a theory was. I posted what it is. You'll have to grasp it, before you can go any further.

60 posted on 11/17/2006 1:24:55 PM PST by spunkets
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To: SampleMan

Haven't yet seen a physics theory that would make one want to change his life except possibly change major either to or from physics.


68 posted on 11/17/2006 2:54:29 PM PST by RightWhale (RTRA DLQS GSCW)
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