Posted on 04/06/2003 10:12:13 AM PDT by Hank Kerchief
Lately we have seen the notion of falsifiability represented as a fallacy. This is itself, a fallacy.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at hpamerica.com ...
Very well, then. You agree with me. You don't have to test something (in this case a singularity) by repeatability and observation in order for investigation into the matter to be scientific.
I'm not sure what you mean when you write "It is what you say about a singularity you test.
That does not change my point about repeatability and observation.
After all, what you say about a singularity must be relevent to the event itself. Since you cannot repeat or observe the singularity, what would you observe or repeat?
You can scientifically study singularities in a 'forensic' sense. Just because you don't bring a 'singularity' to a lab for testing by repeatability and observation does not make the investiation any less scientific.
It's not an issue of reliability. Falsifiability isn't some level on an evidentiary gradient. It's merely a recognition of the fact that if a theory can't distinguish between imagined possibilities, then it can't tell you about the world. If you have a theory that your father's love for you explains your behavior, then that theory can only contain information about the world if it is falsifiable--that is if a test is conceivable that would demonstrate that your father's love does NOT explain your behavior.
You must not pull one of my sentences out of context. I made it clear that it applies to empirical knowledge. Also, no one claims that a statement has to be falsifiable to be correct. A statement (about the observed world) has to be falsifiable to be informative.
Once again you falsely think you are contradicting something I said. You said that the razor was not compelling or profound. I find it quite compelling as a guideline to keep people from simply making crap up. That's the whole point of the razor. You know that once you disregard it, you definitely are making stuff up without justification. You've stopped integrating information about the world and started fantasizing.
How could someone who understands the razor say something like this? (Answer: he wouldn't).
I didn't discover the notion of falsifiability, I'm just telling you what it is. If you don't think that is what it is, then I suppose I could circumvent your ignorance on the matter and create my own term and define it as such. The concept IS a philosophical one. It belongs to the branch of philosophy known as epistomology. As such, it forms an underpinning of empirical science. It is not itself empirical science, however.
just noodling around
You disregard philosophy at your own peril. It underlies everything we think or choose to do. No one is without it, though many choose to just let it fill their heads without understanding it. Philosophy is to consciousness as science is to observation. Each is at the mercy of the other.
I think we have reached an impasse, but I think it is a semantic one. In my post #67 I suggested:
"...if that kind of investigation, which I think geology, and psychology, are similarly, "scientific," in the rigor and methods, but do not meet all the criteria of objective science above [those in the definition you feel is too restrictive], then we are going to need a new term for those sciences which do meet the criteria. Maybe we could call all disciplines that are are scientific in their approach, and use as many of the criteria above as possible, science, but those sciences which meet all of the above criteria, "pure objective science".
Hank
Very simple: Try testing: "The laws of science are universally rational and applicable."
Your quote is not a "scientific" truth in the usual sense, that is, it is not itself a law of science, but a statement about the laws of science. The laws themselves must be testable, and cannot be considered laws until they've "passed the test," so-to-speak.
If by "the laws of science" your quote means all those laws thus far discovered and tested, then your quote has been tested by means of testing every law it includes. If by, "the laws of science," your quote means all that have been discovered and proved, and all those not yet discoeverd, and all those still being tested," then your statement is not a truth of science, but a general descriptive concept about science, and does not come under the requrements of a scientific truth itself.
Hank
The concept is very broad, and it would interest me to know exactly what you had in mind, since it is more than probable I have misunderstood you.
Hank
Undistributed middle. Shoulda paid closer attention ;)
1 X 1 = 1. 1+1=2, not a prime number. :)
hehe......I'm just playin'
But any definition of "objective science" offered so far seems to beg the question. More later.
The razor is an in joke. It doesn't mean squat when put under a critical microscope. For every viewpoint a notion simplifies, there is another viewpoint for which the notion introduces complications. The notion of ether, in cosmological physics was a great simplifier, compared to what came after. Kindly produce a critically accurate mathematical model of the razor, if you are so sure of it's tangible existence. It is a notion for armchair physics and philosophy, it is not something that will ever modify an oscilloscope reading.
The equations tell the story--all else is fundamentally air, and equations have no particular competitive sense of being relatively simpler. For some things, they are simpler, for some things, they are just as likely to be more complex and chaoticly unsatisfying.
You substitute philosophy for the nuts and bolts of science, and you are no longer concerned with science.
By definition.
It underlies everything we think or choose to do. No one is without it, though many choose to just let it fill their heads without understanding it. Philosophy is to consciousness as science is to observation. Each is at the mercy of the other.
Breathing air is absolutely necessary for humans doing science, therefore, breathing is to consciousness as science is to observation, therefore, breathing and science are at the mercy of each other.
One thing I like about philosophy fans is the sheer ernestness with which they spout uselessly vague irrelevancies.
The razor does not prevent people from simply making things up. I already gave you an example. I can produce a minimal astology--that does not make astrology a science. It is critical experiments that can give us a reason to discriminate between possible answers because of their likelihood. The razor discriminates between answers because of a vaguely stated, mathematically undemonstratable appeal to Apollonian aesthetic principles.
I'm telling you that you don't know what the razor is. The ether IS a falsifiable theory. It also was a simple explanation incorporating all the observations available at the time it was promulgated. And your insistence on "equations" as something distinct or unique from the theoretical process is very odd. Math is a nice language for expressing theoretical ideas about quantifiables, but that doesn't mean the razor isn't almost universally applied to their development or that the same concepts can't be described in, for example, French.
Go back and do some more reading on Ockham's razor. It really says little more than, "justify what you claim". As an example, using "equations", do some reading on the identifiability of parameters in nonlinear modeling of sparse data, or simply 'modeling of data'. That should help give you a nice context incorporating most of what you've been talking about.
You may think it is a joke, but what would be really funny is watching people deviate wildly from it. After all, people used to get a kick out of Rube Goldberg.
That's true too. Does that mean you agree that philosophy is unavoidable?
It is exactly that. Corporately, natural sciences engage in an ongoing consensus about the gradiant of reliability of any given, widely accepted thesis. It is not a binary switch, as you seem to think.
It's merely a recognition of the fact that if a theory can't distinguish between imagined possibilities, then it can't tell you about the world. If you have a theory that your father's love for you explains your behavior, then that theory can only contain information about the world if it is falsifiable--that is if a test is conceivable that would demonstrate that your father's love does NOT explain your behavior.
I don't know what you are on about here. The original question was, "could there be heuristically useful ideas that don't qualify as science?" You don't appear, upon casual inspection, to be addressing this question, so I will take a pass on this, unless you wish to clarify what your point is.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.