Logical Fallacies, Formal and Informal

The concept of falsifiability is a greatly misunderstood but legitimate part of the scientific method (a rigorous application of reason to evidence). Consider this statement made as an objection to falsifiability, "Falsifiability can be a valuable intellectual tool: it can help you to disprove ideas which are incorrect. But it does not enable you to prove ideas which are correct." In fact, that is exactly what "falsifiability" does do, and without it, no scientific hypothesis can be proven.

In science, a proposed hypothesis is not considered valid if there is no experiment that can be performed that would, if the hypothesis is incorrect, fail. If such an experiment can be performed, and it "fails to fail," it is proof (or at least very good evidence) the hypothesis is correct.

No doubt the prejudice against this very useful objective method lies in the name, "falsifiability." It does not mean the scientist must attempt to prove a hypothesis false, but the very opposite. "Falsifiability," is the method by which a hypothesis may be proven true. It also does not mean that a hypothesis must be assumed correct until it is falsified.

The idea of falsifiability protects the field of science from being obliged to entertain as, "possible," any wild hypothesis on no other basis than it cannot be disproved. If a hypothesis is correct, there will always be a test or experiment that it would fail, if it is incorrect, which when performed proves the hypothesis correct by not failing (or incorrect by failing).

If no test can be devised for testing a hypothesis, it means the hypothesis has no consequence, that nothing happens or doesn't happen because of it and nothing depends on it being right. If this were not true, whatever depended on the hypothesis could be tested. There is absolutely no reason to entertain a notion that has neither purpose or consequence.

"But why not perform experiments to verify rather than falsify?" In fact, all experiments performed to test a hypothesis are attempts to verify it. If such a test could "pass" even if the hypothesis were incorrect, passing the test would prove nothing. Passing a test is only, "proof," if passing is only possible when the hypothesis is true, which means the test must fail (the hypothesis will be falsified) when the hypothesis is untrue. A test which cannot falsify a hypothesis, if it is incorrect, cannot prove it, if it is correct.

To say a hypothesis is not falsifiable means that it cannot be proved (or disproved), and, therefore, is unacceptable as a scientific theory.

It is very unfortunate that this concept is misunderstood by many who are otherwise quite rational and objective. The principle not only applies to science, but almost all complex or abstract concepts. The attempt to verify any conjecture by means of a method that cannot discriminate between those conjectures which are true and those which are false can never discover the truth. Only a method which distinctly demonstrates a conjecture is false, if it is, can verify those conjectures that are true.

The concept of falsifiability sweeps away mountains of irrational rubbish masquerading as science, philosophy, ideology, and religion. One question that must be asked about any doubtful proposition or conjecture is, "how can this be disproved if it is false?" If there is no way to test if the proposition is false, there are no rational grounds whatsoever for assuming the proposition to be true.

We have mapped the human D.N.A. and science says they know what conditions "created" us, so I suggest this: In a lab reproduce the environment then add the stuff they think should have produced us, then POOF, humans.

With the technology that we have today we cannot even come close to producing the human brain. So all a scientist has to do for me is to prove beyond doubt that God does not exist. Which is not possible. Therefore if you cannot disprove His existance, He therefore MUST exist.

Science cannot even Prove evolution. They say there are missing links, yet in all the digging they have found none of the IN-BETWEENS. There are missing pieces to the puzzle but the layers they should be in do EXIST and have been dug into. But alas they have found nothing.

Science is now going back to try and come up with the explaination for Modern man and Neandrathal living at the same time. Which they recently discovered. Yet we are to believe they will be able to explain it away when they themselves argue the points.

They said our universe is shrinking, but now they say it is still expanding.

They have forgotten one rule. The Heisenberg Priciple: "The observance of any phenomenon automatically modifies that phenomenon."

And I agree with Hank. I think. I just wanted to rephrase one statement, using the point that faith-based religions aren't amenable to ultimate proof by scientific methods. A person who seeks the ability to perform a scientific "proof" for his religion, does not have a faith-based religion. A person who holds a faith-based religion isn't going to be persuaded away by science. If one is swayed away, i.e., lost faith, then one no longer holds the religion.

Hank Well you do agree with me, or at least I agree with you.

The only thing that is acceptable about the system is that it's voluntary. That's what makes it such a neat experiment. About 97% of the population rejects it.

Yeah, PH. And the 3 percent who do accept it are probably doing so for "religious" reasons. Ex.: Israeli kibbutzim and New England Shakers among the presently existing populations who have freely chosen this economic/cultural form. [The fact that neither probably could have survived as long as they did without the support of the surrounding capitalist society is a story for another day.]

The Shakers are dying out (unfortunately), being reduced to a population of quite elderly women (the sect having strongly discouraged marriage) that one could number on the fingers of one hand. To my knowledge, there have been no "recruits" in many, many decades. So when these ladies pass, that will be the end of their "experiment," an end of a culture -- except for the legacy of a style of perfectly formed and perfectly "people-friendly" furniture.

Which brings to mind the fortunes of the Oneida Colony, which is the case of bona-fide American socialist utopia most familiar to me. It is similarly replete with a certain irony, and suffused by elements of uproarious comedy. Do you want to hear that story?

A person who seeks the ability to perform a scientific "proof" for his religion, does not have a faith-based religion.

However, this is something odd, especially for a science that is based on assumptions---or even for a religion that appreciates an attempt to shore against lies.

There was an ancient comedian who thought that the sexes were once together but that Zeus split them apart (the evidence is the puckered places where they separated).

I've read about them. In fact, I've cited them (and Sparta, and the original Mayflower settlement) whenever some bozo claims that atheism = communism. In truth, there have been many religious communal societies. Ditto for the kibbutz gang.

So all a scientist has to do for me is to prove beyond doubt that God does not exist. Which is not possible. Therefore if you cannot disprove His existance, He therefore MUST exist.

This is a logical fallacy. Suppose I were to say you can't prove 100 foot-long octopuses don't live at the core of Pluto's moon, Charon. Therefore, they must exist.

You are the one positing the existence of God. The burden of proof properly rests on you to establish this.

Science cannot even Prove evolution.

We agree. And I don't think this proof is possible! Science isn't about proofs, it's about testable hypotheses that are, so far, consistent with all known observations. Evolution is a theory, just like quantum mechanics is a theory.

They say there are missing links, yet in all the digging they have found none of the IN-BETWEENS. There are missing pieces to the puzzle but the layers they should be in do EXIST and have been dug into.

That is why they're called missing links. If we had them, they wouldn't be "missing" now, would they?

But, we may yet find them in the future. If we do, what would that do for you with respect to the theory of evolution? And what would it do for any other hypothesis you presently have about the origin of humans on this planet? We haven't looked everywhere yet - they may still remain somewhere to be found.

You both object to my saying there are proofs in science. It seems to me that both of you are using proof to mean something I do not think it does or is intended to mean.

It is as much a proof if a hypothesis is demonstrated to be false as it is if one is demonstrated to be correct.

Consider: The phlogiston hypothesis, advanced by J. J. Becher late in the 17th century postulates that in all flammable materials there is present phlogiston, a substance without color, odor, taste, or weight that is given off in burning. “Phlogisticated” substances are those that contain phlogiston and, on being burned, are “dephlogisticated.”

Based on experiments performed by Joseph Priestley and perfected by himself, Antoine Lavoisier presented his now famous proof that combustion did not involve phlogiston but oxygen on September 5, 1775, to the French Academy of Science.

Interestingly, this is also an example of a proof of something true in science, as, well, as is frequently the case.

This is all I mean by proof in science. Both of you seem to think a proof has to answer everything to be a proof, but a proof, in science or anything else, only needs to demonstrate, without equivocation, that a single proposition is true, and then only withing the specific context it is made.

Hank

"Nonobjective activity like politics, hunches, intuition is human activity. Science is human activity. Therefore science is just another nonobjective activity. This is a formal fallacy called Illicit Major, and is documented here. Thanks for warning me about those guys. This is a pretty basic error."

It _is_ a basic error - but this is not my syllogism, it is yours. Mine goes like this:

All humans have a metaphysical viewpoint that cannot be escaped.
Scientists are human.
Therefore, scientists have metaphysical viewpoints, etc.

There is no priviliged view from on high. At any rate, simple historical record shows convincingly that non-objective criteria play a large part in science, especially in determining which problems deserve attention and which are to be ignored. The longer I live, the more I see Kuhn validated.

The many communal experiments in the United States -- the Owens Colony, Oneida Colony, Brook Farm, Fruitlands, et al., were all miserable failures. They were "home-grown" social experiments that didn't work here just as they haven't worked anywhere else. We are talking about 150+ years of "experiments."

Communal societies worked fine until confronted with a better system (usually the concepts of Capitalism and private property). But some some modern societies (usually induced by paranoia learned from the recent past) find it the only way to work (see Somalia of the current day) - it's an "enlightened" arnarchist-libertarianist-tribal society allowed to exist because of international pressures from the big boys that keep the kleptocracies out.

You both object to my saying there are proofs in science. It seems to me that both of you are using proof to mean something I do not think it does or is intended to mean. It is as much a proof if a hypothesis is demonstrated to be false as it is if one is demonstrated to be correct.

Well, yes. If a theory is falsified, it has been proven false. That's a proof. But I still maintain that a theory is never proven true. Theories can only survive attempts at falsification. Like a gunfighter in the old West, a theory is only as good as its last test.

Hey, dumbass!

Any number of odd primes multiplied together is odd; add one and the result is even - divisible by the prime number "2".

Read the original post (and proof) again and this time think before you post and, inadvertently, prove your utter lack of educational accomplishment!

Forgive me but the word "proof" has a specific meaning to me and I think to most scientists and certainly to all mathematicians. If something is "proven" then it is absolutely correct, irrefutable and irrevocably true. Where such certainty is lacking, I use terms like a theory being "supported" or "strengthened" but not "proved".

That Newton's theory correctly predicted the location of as-yet unseen planets Uranus and Neptune certainly added validity to that theory, but it didn't prove that it was correct. In fact, Newtonian theory is wrong and requires at least QM and relativity to correct for the influence of the wave nature of matter, time dilation at non-zero velocities and near gravitational objects.

Your example of the phlogiston theory regards a theory that was disproven - which I certainly admit can happen - but not the proof of any other theory. Fundmental to all scientific hypothesis and to the article at the top of this thread is falsifiability: that there exists some experiment that could show that a given theory is wrong. Such a test was done to the phlogiston theory, and the phlogiston theory failed. That theory is wrong without a doubt - but no test has been done (or, in my opinion, can be done) that shows another scientific theory is absolutely correct under all conditions and circumstances.

It _is_ a basic error - but this is not my syllogism

It may not be what you intended, but it is exactly what you said. I only reorganized what you said to put it into syllogistic form. I'm willing to stipulate it is not what you intended.

You said this is your syllogism:

All humans have a metaphysical viewpoint that cannot be escaped.
Scientists are human.
Therefore, scientists have metaphysical viewpoints, etc.

What is meant by a, "metaphysical viewpoint," might be anything, but I suspect it is some kind of Kantian view of human consciousness, which I totally reject. All human viewpoints are chosen and the only inescapable part is the necessity of having one. There is absolutely nothing necessary about the content of that viewpoint.

Hank

My response to your "discovery" that 2 is prime and nevertheless is a divisor of any number that is a product of odd primes +1 is contained in post #78.

What I wrote in my original post was it therefore must be prime or be a composite number containing prime factors not in the original list. If you have a bunch of odd primes, then their product + 1 will have 2 as a divisor, which makes it "a composite number containing prime factors not in the original list."

Perhaps you'd care to apologize for the dumbass comment, and/or look in the mirror?

My response to your "discovery" that 2 is prime and nevertheless is a divisor of any number that is a product of odd primes +1 is contained in post ~~#78~~ 88.

Oops again! I looked in the mirror and found the real dumbass. Sorry about that - too many wonderful "Mort Subites" this evening. Please forgive me as I sign out for the evening.

Balrog

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