This reminds me of an article in Nature a few years ago...I'll have to look it up.

In the meantime, let's start the listing. And the bickering.

Dark Matter and Dark Energy!

There you go. I win, and you lose. :wink:

Why do you consider them non-falsifiable?

PS: what did I lose, Don Pardo?

If it was proven that galaxies would behave the way observed without extra mass, and that the "lumpyness" of the early universe was consistant with the effects of gravitational waves, DM would be pretty much falsified.

If quantum mechanics was proven to be completely bogus, DE would be falsified.

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If ignorance is bliss, why is the world so full of misery?

Science is not a "contest" to be won or lost...it's a search for the truth.

...and please don't answer with, "what is truth"...unless you want my head to explode.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

I think you could study or define something scientifically because it is falsifiable, but being falsifiable doesn't mean someone is looking at a thing scientifically.

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Democracy Now! - The lost art of investigative news reporting.

I'm sure this'll go over like a pregnant pole vaulter, but cannot resist:

It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. -- Carl Sagan

Please note that I'm not sharing this quote so that it may be twisted back in reference to the BBT, DM, or DE.

Let's assume for a moment that I agree with you (which I don't), but even still, 2 hardly constitutes "a lot."

Are those theories or predictions of theories?

edit: Lets get right to the point: you've said previously that the BBT is not falsifiable. A specific piece of information was given to you which, if found, would falsify the BBT: namely, a finding of a lot of distant galaxies with blue-shifts.

edit2: Actually, I consider that quote of yours, soup, to pretty much be an oxymoron: by definition, if its a scientific theory, its falsifiable. I'm sure what you meant to say is that 'many theories which some people consider scientific are not falsifiable.'

And, I think using the format of being or not being falsifiable leaves out a lot of scientific discovery where there is sufficient evidence to indicate results, but no way to falsify the theory.

Religion, for example. I do not mean to start any discussion about the truthfulness or anything else about religion. But, there is a lot of scientific evidence that can show whether some and/or all of the doctrines of a religion are factual. The doctrines themselves are falsifiable.

And, there is evidence that can be scientifically studied regarding the social/cultural aspects of religion.

But putting the two bodies of evidence together, we somehow have decided, no conclusions can be drawn about the existence of god/s because that question is not falsifiable. I disagree. I think you can say certain criteria must be present to show evidence of a god, and certain criteria may not be present to show evidence of a god.

I don't bring this up to discuss evidence for or against a god so please don't hijack the thread. Go to FWIS instead.

I bring this up to ask, what is it that can't be falsified? I'm not sure anything fits that category. I think, (and perhaps my ignorance of science will show here), that some questions have been avoided by science by either not looking at ways to falsify the question or because we haven't developed the criteria or science needed to falsify the question.

I think the existence of god/s fits the former category and the existence of the Universe before the BB or the existence of other universes fits the latter category.

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~~ ><>><> ~~ ><,,> ><,,> ...`;=;p d;=;' /\/\^/\ ^^ ^/\/\_
Democracy Now! - The lost art of investigative news reporting.

I have often heard it said that Falsifiability is a cornerstone of science.

But what does this mean exactly? How and when might a scientific theory be described as falsifiable? I am interested to hear people's undertanding of Falsification before I contribute further.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere Carl Sagan

beskeptical - My understanding of the god question is that you have to be outside of a system in order to test it, and there's no way to get outside the universe - and that is presumably where the god/gods/goddess/goddesses reside if he/she/they/it in fact created matter.

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"The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient."

So what you meant by your statement requires an explanation from us? #-o

Soup, you made a specific statement (accusation?) and it was asked that you clarify. Are you going to back your statement up or not?

It is a simple matter for me to justify my statement that Dark Matter and Dark Energy are not falsifiable.

However, I suspect it will be necessary to explain the concept of Falsification before hand. Surprisingly, for a scientific forum, it creates a lot of confusion.

Let's make it absolutely explicit:

That's soupdragon's quote. The "that's because" is irrelevant given the context (feel free to check and make sure), leaving the statement "A lot of scientific theories are not falsifiable."

It's soups' statement. He should define (and be prepared to defend) his use of the terms. The onus is on no one else here.

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

So what are you waiting for exactly? :-s

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"The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient."

Then perhaps you should start without further ado.

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

One often hears that man first learned how to use fire by observing lighting strikes and/or tinkering around volcanoes. As trivial as it sounds, this statement cannot be tested or verified and is scientifically irrelevant. It should not be included in scientific texts without emphasizing the point that this is speculation or hypothesis, not a supportable theory.

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

I think we should test this hypothesis by not providing any answers, and see if Soup remains silent

In the archeological world, current methods of modeling must demonstrate viability: They must show humans living in the proposed environment would or would not starve. If more than one model meets both the viability criteria and the observations, each conflicting model must be allowed to stand on its own merits until it is falsified.

Cosmologist should take a page from this book: Unless and until competing alternatives are falsified, multiple grand schemes should be encouraged, not summarily dismissed because they lack completeness.

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

Any theory of a multidimensional universe that arises from a mathematical construction but which requires for it's experimantal proof, the observation of events taking place in dimensions which that observer cannot get information from.

For instance that there are events that take place at an extreme sub atomic level beyond which quantum mechanics states that chaos and randomness prevail. There is a theory that just beyond that level is another set of physical rules that, if known and observed , would accuratly predict what happens on this side of the barrier. Nice theory but it cannot be proven or falsified unless an observation can be made in an area where observation from the 3 dimensional universe we live in is impossible.

There is another that is backed up by the math, that explains the "Big Bang" and the expansion of the universe,,,and allows for multiple Bangs without a previous Big Crunch. I am sorry I don't have access to the article right now, I'll try and post it later. In this theory the universe consists of many membranes and if the energy in each two adjacent membranes is low enough they are drawn to gether. When they intersect there is a huge amount of energy imparted to each membrane at the point of contact. Our universe is one of those membranes, the BB is the result of the last interaction between it and an adjacent (in n space) membrane. When the energy from this last interaction has sufficiently dispersed, sometime after all black holes have disappeared having lost their mass to Hawking Radiation, the energy in each membrane will again be insufficient to keep them from intersecting and flash, another BB. This theory, although mathematically consistent, cannot be proved nor falsified.

Falsification is the flip side of proof. Experimental observation will either prove or disprove a theory unless there is no way of constructing such an experiment.


Am I full of ........ or does this make any sense to anyone?

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

As I asked above, are those theories or implications of theories? The difference is important.

Not a bad example, but I'd need to see a specific instance of that to say if you are right or wrong. All that's needed are the words "scientists speculate that...." and the problem disappears.

The idea of falsification in science is attributed to philosopher Sir Karl Raimund Popper. He accepted that unrestricted generalizations could not be verified. However, he called to our attention that they could be falsified.

Scientific theories make claims about expected observations. For example, suppose someone claims that at distances beyond 5 billion light-years all galaxies are red shifted. Although no amount of observation of such galaxies can verify that claim, one properly authenticated observation of a blue shifted galaxy in that distance range would falsify the claim.

According to Popper, falsifiability is the hallmark of science. No scientific theory is ever conclusively verified, no matter how often its predictions come true. And as most of us know, scientific theories are very prone to revision.

this book (which was a best seller -- an odd thing for a history or science book),
Against the Gods
provides a good history of risk evaluation, and along the way insight into hypothesis testing.

There are lots of twists and turns along the way, and a lot of people that incrementally improved what had been done previously.

I'm not sure if this comment means you do not understand dark matter and energy, or you do not understand falsifiability. But it's one of those two choices.

Of course these are falsifiable theories. They make predictions. These predictions may turn out to be wrong. If they are sufficiently wrong (either individually or cumulatively) then the theory will be scrapped.

As it happens, dark matter makes lots of predictions. For example, it predicts the shape of X-ray emission from galaxies. Another theory, MOND, makes slightly different predictions. Recently, observations showed that MOND was wrong in its prediction, while dark matter was right.

While this does not prove dark matter is right, it supports it, and seriously wounds MOND.

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com

Not a bad effort, but there are better one's above.

I am pretty sure SD doesn't understand Falsifiability. Soupdragon, could you tell us what falsifiability means to you?

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Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

Trouble is Musashi, it's not a straight forward philosophical issue. For example, the BA, a fine astronomer, hasn't quite grasped it. See above.

\

If you're going to sit here and try to dismantle everyone's definition of falsifiable, then why don't you define it yourself? You've been dodging the issue since you started this thread. You claim to have "a lot" of science that isn't falsifiable. When we tear down your TWO examples (hardly a myriad) you presume to dance around the very issue YOU started. So let's hear what you have.

I think falsifiability, in a scientific context, is a very simple issue. I would like to know what you think it is please, since you keep making, what appear to me, to be incoorect assumptions about it.

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Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.