dgruss23 introduced falsification in
this Q&A thread,
post #32:
Quote:
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And that is the issue with all of these cases I've noted and it constitutes a falsification of the expectations for CDM particles - and any collisionless DM particles.
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I'm curious about what BAUT members think of the role of falsification in modern science, particularly those parts of science directly relevant to the scope of BAUT (astronomy, cosmology, planetary sciences, astrobiology, ....).
My own view is summarised in
my response to
drguss23's post:
Quote:
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Now 'falsificationism' may be satisfying to many philosophers, and to many who are not actively working at the coalface of science, but I don't think I'm exaggerating when I state that it is an easily falsified view of how science - and in particular physics, astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology - are actually done. Simply put, unless and until a new (or several new) alternative explanations come along that are better at generating testable hypotheses than the current paradigm (not to mention accounting for all good, relevant observational and experimental results), simply 'falsifying' something gets you little traction. After all (for example), the anomalous advance of the perihelion of Mercury very clearly 'falsified' Newtonian gravity for what, many decades? Yet it was not until Einstein and GR that that theory was 'retired' as being merely a good, limited-domain explanation.
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In
the very next post, dgruss23 continues:
Quote:
Sure that may not be the way science is done. But it is the way science should be done. I'm just stating an opinion here, but since we're talking philosophy... collisionless CDM is a failure on galaxy scales. It fails with the observed coupling between luminous and DM. The predictions from computer models fail to live up to the realty provided by observations. It fails in the realm of detection of the hypothesized particles. How much is progress in our understanding of the universe being limited by this type of thinking?
I know you're right Nereid - that is how researchers think - but it is one of the most illogical ways of thinking that an intelligent group of people engages in. Seriously just step back and think about it - multiple CDM failures have been demonstrated for over 20 years now. And there are people that will continue to explore CDM because that is the "best" there is to offer?! Where galaxy scales are concerned it is not the "best" - MOND is actually better.
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Now I do NOT want to discuss the case for or against MOND, or collisionless CDM, or ... (although they may be used as examples); I am curious to know what others think of the relevance of falsification in modern science.
For example, does it describe how scientists 'do' science, even if only more-or-less? Or is it an unscientific notion, if only because it itself cannot be falsified (even in principle)?
In addition to Mercury's anomalous perihelion*, let's consider the neutrino: the initial (beta decay?) observations could have been said to 'falsify energy conservation' (and, AFAIK, some folk said exactly that, despite being quite familiar with Noether's theorem). Several decades later a testable hypothesis ('neutrino') that was built on energy conservation was confirmed, by Reines and Cowan. For those involved in researching Mercury's orbit, or beta decay (and other neutrino-related stuff), prior to GR/{Reines and Cowan}, how helpful would statements such as "Newton's universal law of gravitation has been falsified" and "the law of conservation of energy has been falsified" have been?
And in the case of collisionless CDM and MOND, how helpful is it that MOND was falsified before it was even written down^?
*
which remained 'anomalous' for how many decades? IIRC, at least the working life of an average scientist, twice over!
^
MOND is inconsistent with special relativity (SR), and SR has passed an enormous range of experimental and observational tests.