Posted on 04/06/2003 10:12:13 AM PDT by Hank Kerchief
Technically, it is not a criterion, it is a definition. This is what is meant by proof, a, b, c, and d, and a is, the hypothesis must be able to be proved by a test that it can only pass if it is correct.
You want to use a different definition, fine. Please tell us what it is, though, before expecting those of us who want some a reason for believing something is true, to do so.
I think you also miss the point of falsifiability. All is says is, if you give something a test, any kind of test, and it can pass the test, whether it is right or wrong, the test doesn't test anything. It doesn't even say you have to give anything a test.
Hank
Showing that common tests don't contradict our hypothesis may not prove the hypothesis, but it can increase our confidence when a clear TRUE/FALSE is not yet available to us. This is often the case with theorems: they aren't absolutely proven to be true, but after extensive examination, they have been shown to be "not inconsistent" with anything that we DO know.
In social policy, etc... it gives us confidence to proceed with that which we strongly believe to be true, on the grounds that it is consistent with those things about which we are already sure or accept as axiomatic.
Our thinking becomes fallacious only when we say we have proven a thing by failing to disprove it. To know that, you must show that the test which failed to disprove the thing would certainly have disproven it, had the proposition been false.
Don't worry, you've got it. We'll see to it you get what you deserve.
Hank
Faith is belief without proof. Faith is not "knowledge." Most believers bolster their faith with a reasoning process, but at the very bottom, there is faith, and only faith.
If a "scientific" proof is possible, if a reasoned analysis based on unimpeachable observation can conclude with proof that your religion is correct, then your religion is not faith-based.
It's a definition thing. Change the words to suit your own preferences.
I trust you are not recommending this. The conventional understanding is that knowledge is true, justified, belief.
These statements are incorrect. I see no reason why faith would be defined in such a way. Especially since faith is not unique to religion.
For example, many scientists practice faith. Scientific theories--even widely accepted theories--are based in faith. For instance, faith that the laws of physics are and will remain uniform, etc.
Surely such faith does not, by definition, exclude knowledge or proof.
How did you account for the wing-span variable? ;~)
tame snipped my statement to "Faith is belief without proof. Faith is not 'knowledge.' ...at the very bottom, there is faith, and only faith." and went on to say . . .
These statements are incorrect. I see no reason why faith would be defined in such a way. Especially since faith is not unique to religion.
Jeez louise. My comments in context were pretty clearly limited to religious faith, and faith-based religions. I'm not trying to make a comprehenisve catalog of possible meanings and uses of the words "faith" "belief" "knowledege" "reasoning" and "proof" (among others).
I'm pretty sure the thought I am trying to convey is understandable, even if you think my choice of nouns sucks.
The Greeks believed it. There are nymphs in the Iliad (I suppose). Centuries and centuries of believers, literature, and people who will swear they have encountered nymphs. You can't falsify it. So is it scientific (by your definition)?
And yet discussion is the name of the game here.
Socrates warned about misologia--the hatred of words. He said misologia was a form of misanthropia the hatred of being human. Hamlet too, was all strung up wid 'em.
The fact that dictionaries do what you say just goes to show you that language can never exhaust reality--a fact that ol' W. didn't take well too. He tried very hard to press language for more than it could carry.
Language is therefore political and has direction. And we could mean that in the old fashioned sense. It has direction toward or away from the polis: the community of human beings both as we know them to be and wish them to be.
The view that human beings are nothing if not rational is but an old-fashioned 18th century attempt to fix our nature for certainty. I think it is dangerous and can only be done at the expense of other things we know.
I think tame is on track with his last.
Excellent response, and my only, not very important, objection is to the above.
There are many, "proofs," in both science and technology (think computer science) as well. Many proofs are actually applications of the abstract, "sciences," to the real world. In topology, for example, how various real physical configurations can or cannot behave can be proved (consider the Mobius band), not by observation, but by the application of topological principles.
Chemistry involves myraid proofs of both composition and behavior. (The double helix of DNA is not a hypothesis but a proven theory.) (The entire periodic table is a huge proof of many different hypotheses.) The laser is "proof" of certain quantum mechanics principles applied to nature of light.
Hank
And so do I. The notion of "faith" plays in many arenas. It's just that I have meant for my comments to be limited to one narrow arena.
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.
You are free to disagree, of course.
That is correct!
However, if something is untestable, that is, it has no practical consequence (there is nothing you can apply it to that would be different if you didn't) what is the point of it. If there is a practical consequence, then it can be tested. Otherwise, why believe it?
This is the principle of Occam's razor. If everything is explained, additional explanations are a mistake. Do you see that?
Hank
I consider topology a branch of math, not science. I agree that mathematical truths are more secure than scientific ones.
Chemistry involves myraid proofs of both composition and behavior. (The double helix of DNA is not a hypothesis but a proven theory.)
I disagree. The double helix is a model of how genetics works, and it is consistent with all known observations on the subject. It is consistent with x-ray diffraction and why intercalating agents are so-called "frameshift mutagens" - they insert themselves inside the base pairs and cause a reading error by the tRNA. But, you can't directly see the double helix, and you can't prove it isn't all one big illusion foisted upon us by invisible creatures, determined to influence the outcome of our experiments so as to shape the way in which we believe the natural world works. As of now, there is no evidence that such creatures exist - but some experiment may be done in the future that shows the double helix is just an illusion. Consider how well Newtonian physics explained planetary motion - it predicted the position of unseen planets, for example. But, in light of relativity and QM, it's simply wrong.
(The entire periodic table is a huge proof of many different hypotheses.)
The periodic table doesn't "prove" anything - it's just an organized way of presenting what we believe are chemical elements.
The laser is "proof" of certain quantum mechanics principles applied to nature of light.
It is as much proof of QM as the discovery of Uranus and Neptune "proved" Newtonian laws of planetary motion.
Regarding science, it is widly believed that theories are never really "proven." They survive experimental testing, which are occasions for potential disproof, but in principle, any scientific theory is subject to disproof if some new test, or some new evidence comes along which is inconsistent with the theory. Our most successful theories certainly accumulate a lot of supporting evidence, but technically this isn't "proof," just confirmation that the theory is still viable as far as we have been thus far been able to determine. Any new evidence which throws a theory into doubt must in due course be incorporated into a revised theory that is itself consistent with all prior evidence.
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