Disinfo,

Perhaps this link sums up what's really been going on here, at least on one side. Or at least the most amusing song in a particular musical about Texas, as sung by Charles Durning.

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cyrek1 comment

The BB is easily falsifiable but not in the minds of the supporters.

By the way, why does a theory have to be falsifiable to be scientific?
It seems to me that science is supposed to be portrayed as the truth.
Is the truth supposed to be falsifiable?

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aka Michael Cyrek

Soup, I find it hard to understand _why_ so much fanfare and preparation is needed to answer such a simple question, but maybe that, too will be forthcoming in your essay. It would have saved quit a bit of tooth gnashing her if your "I will attempt to clarify the issue" post (and that still upcoming essay) had been your first post in this thread.

I am also particularly interested in your step number 4. I've never heard that adequately explained.

Since Soupdragons's essay is really the crux of things needed to further on-topic discourse here. I'd really like to save any further discussion until it appears.

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“The simplest schoolboy is now familiar with truths for which Archimedes would have sacrificed his life.” – Earnest Renan

Based upon your comments in this thread and the "belief system" thread it occurred to me that could be the case.

Now I had thought that perhaps you were not giving your definition because you were willing to work with whatever definition we considered. This should be and interesting discussion once you provide your definition because we all understand that scientific theories should be "falsifiable" but perhaps that concept isn't explored as deeply as it should be.

Science and truth are not the same. At best, science is a tentative picture of the truth.
But you need to have a way of telling how good that picture is, otherwise all theories would be equally legitimate, including theories that contradicted each other. That's where falsifiability (via empirical evidence) comes in. It's a way of discarding the bad apples.

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"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

I suppose I was getting at the idea that falsifiability would be a continum from those theories that are easily tested and thereby fasifiable to those with zero testability and therefore not fasifiable. The problem therefore with my statement was that I got lazy and said "less" and "no way" in the same sentance.

Fasifiability also is an evolving matter. There are likely(though I cannot think of one off the top of my head right now) theories that were thought unfasifiable 20, 30 60,100 years ago that today, with new technology and equipment are testable and thereby fasifiable. A new mathematical construct of a theory may not immediatly be seen to make predictions in the present day that can be tested but future mathematicians working on it may find such a thing. To say that any scientific (and here I exclude all religious theories that in essence require no testability for it's adherents) theory is 100% unfasifiable is itself an unfasifiable statement!


My head hurts This must be philosophy

Soup, so glad you decided to rejoin the conversation. Now will you live up to the fanfare? The curtain is up, the overture has been played, time for the opening lines to be delivered.

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"Man has always found it easier to sacrifice his life than learn the multiplication table." - Somerset Maugham

Well, you can say it, but you cannot demonstrate it. How can you verify that Pele is not out there somewhere, in another dimension perhaps? This is a perfect example of a claim ("Pele exists") that is unfalsifiable and therefore "unscientific" according to Popper (and most of the scientific community). Note that a believer could likely come up with assertions claiming to support the existence of Pele. As Popper says, "It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory-if we look for confirmations." Of course the validity of such a conclusion would be highly questionable.
I think you're wrong there.

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Why? I think she's wrong too, but it's just a "gut feeling", and that does us no good. 8)

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Most of us always do. You however have chosen to beard the lion in its den.
I think you mean "easily falsified" not "easily falsifiable."

Which brings up an interesting observation--there are a lot of people posting that these theories have been actually falsified, whereas in this thread here we [have] a statement that that is not even possible--that the theory is not only not false, but it's not possible to show it false.

PS: Added "have"

I find this thread to be among the more interesting on the board lately. Although I am not a scientist by training or practice, I want to chime in with my understanding. Those who do, please feel free to correct or amplify my comments if needed.

Truth is a loaded word, with several definitions. Remember “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” each of these applications and many others are contained in the word “truth.” People also use truth in a religious context, such as “one true God” or “the truths found in the Bible” that are personal experiences and have no meaning in science. Given this vagueness of the word “truth,” I prefer to define science as a quest for a clearer understanding of the natural world. As part of this scientist go through a process of discovery that can produce knowledge, or an accurate though not complete understanding of the natural world.

One must also look at people when discussing this subject. The process of the discovery of knowledge is carried out by people and thus subject to human flaws and foibles. I have met people trained in science (particularly social sciences) and engineering that were as doctrinally dogged as fundamentalist members of any religion. They simple lacked the ability to see anyone else’s point of view, and were prone to portray their knowledge as “Truth.” This is a human failing that we are all subject to some degree, and applying it as a heuristic for many daily situations actually saves us a great deal of time. Though applied in excess it can lead to conflict.

By agreeing that knowledge is incomplete, knowledge becomes subject to degrees of certainty, or the reciprocal, uncertainty. Clarifying certainty is a primary activity of the practice of science. Theories can be developed with differing degrees of certainty but uncertainty can never be eliminated. I would like to give examples here but not being a scientist I leave it as an exercise for the reader. In the public reporting of science, relative degrees of certainty are frequently lost because non-specialist frequently don’t have the background to appreciate them in context and vagueness doesn’t make good copy. We should not be deterred by this in seeking knowledge, just look elsewhere.

Being defined as such, knowledge lends itself to falsification because it requires objective standards and evidence that is subject to challenge. This process is somewhat independent of the people that carry it out because each individual wishing to prove an inner belief of certainty correct must seek an objective measure of certainty for a hypothesis to become a theory or for a theory to be sustained or over thrown. Scientist and other researchers (in my experience) are a feisty and competitive bunch who tend to poke holes in others work by questioning evidence and the application of standards.

Though fraught with human failings, the process of creating knowledge that we call science is the clearest way to understand the natural world and we should not let exhibits of these failings prevent us from searching for knowledge or changing the certainty with which we hold it. Nor should we hold peoples failings against them as if they violated some truth. We all have failings and all need the forgiveness of others for exhibiting them, it's part of human existence.

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Fair enough, but in the absence of the crieria, they'd need to use the disclaimer. Minor point of clarity - some predictions may not be testable today, with existing technology, but may be testable in the future, with better technology. Such predictions are falsifiable. Its not a requirement that a theory be falsifiable now - in fact, its almost a requirement that some of its predictions not be immediately falsifiable (otherwise, the theory makes no actual predictions).

This is a fun thread. While we are all patiently waiting for Soup, do you mind if I poke at his claim a little?

"Dark Matter" can also be referred to as a concept: We see the signature of matter where it is not. Since it is used in several ways, several avenues for falsification exist: If we identify baryons we have overlooked in cluster cores, this aspect of DM could be considered falsified. If we find a better explanation for the MOND effect, DM could also be eliminated from the edges of galaxies.

As for the other DM, neutrinos, perhaps we are missing a set of wave equations that provide a better explanation for the conservation of angular momentum in nuclear reactions, but don't bet the ranch on it.

"Dark Energy" represents a reconstruct of general relativity. This concept sits on ice so thin you can see the cracks in it: In Einsteins original paper, DE was added to stablize an unbalanced set of equations, not pull the universe apart.

In the current version, the apparent attenuation of supernovae Ia provide weak supportive evidence. If the increasing sample of high redshift supernova statistically eliminate evidence of cosmic acceleration, dark energy becomes an artifact.

Sorry Soup, I agree with the BA, both of these BB constructs are subject to falsification. The BB is a very rubbery target.

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jwj

It's ok not to know.

I think I can clarify: Yes, there may be some criteria under which you could test a "theory of god," but those criterea won't necessarily lend themselves to testing. Yeah, that wouldn't make them good criteria, but I'd be surprised if testable criteria exist.

Everybody else is doing it, so... :wink:
You can test parts of some religious beliefs, like, say, the world flood, or the age of the Earth. But then believers can always tell you that those mythological details are not essential to their doctrine; that the moral and spiritual teachings are the most important part of the message.

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

That's OK. No hurry. It's 1754 GMT now.

As instigator of this thread, I authorize another six hours. So, till Wednesday.

That's generous of you.

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My name is milli360, and I approve of this odd

Or some other parts--if the religion is silly enough to proclaim that event X will never happen, then demonstrating that event X has indeed occurred should be sufficient to show the religion is false.