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From "engines 1542:
Most important, it was Bacon who insisted that true
science has to be falsifiable. When we stop looking
for ways to prove our science wrong, we cease to be
scientists. That was Bacon's objection to the
alchemists. They reasoned as a debate team might
reason; they reasoned to win rather than to inquire.
What Bacon insisted on (and what any real scientist
must do) is to go where nature directs. A science
that begins with its own conclusions is no science at
all.
I know what he means, but i don't think that word fits. Comments?
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A science that begins with its own conclusions is no science at all.
The political, social and psycological fields' attempts at 'science' should use the same *directive.
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falsifiable
Just means capable of being proven wrong. Not sure what your problem is, Dr. Bill.
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Falsify is to prove or make something false.
If all science were "falsifiable" science would have no value. I'm sure what was meant was that
science should be able to withstand intelligent criticism.
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If all science were "falsifiable" science would have no value.
Capable of being falsified and having been falsified are two different things. If you come up with something that is not capable of being unmasked for a bunch of claptrap, it isn't science. A theory is only valid as long as it hasn't been falsified, but if there's no possibility of falsifying it it doesn't qualify as a theory; it's just a myth.
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"If you come up with something that is not capable of being unmasked
for a bunch of claptrap, it isn't science."
Please, Faldage, listen to what you have said. You have said that all science is worthless.
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Not at all. I'm saying that you can't trust anything that is not, by its nature, capable of being proven false. E.g., The universe was created by and is controlled by the Invisible Pink Unicorn. It's a question of what is meant by capable of being falsified. It doesn't mean that it is ineveitable that it will be disproven. For example, it was hypothesized that two objects of different weights would fall tthrough the air at the same speed. You disprove it by dropping two such weights and showing that the ten pound weight falls ten times as fast as the one pound weight.
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Dear Faldage: Science must be verifiable There are many things about the universe
that we cannot verify. But I am willing for instance to believe that black holes exist, because so many
observations are consistent with the existence of them.
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I gotta thank you. I guess I pretty much took the notion of falsifiability to be Popperian. I had thought his was a response to the positivists (who that that something had to be provable to be scientific). But the problem was that the positivists didn't answer Hume's question about induction. I've never actually read anything Bacon wrote, and I'm sure that I'm a worse person for it.
The problem with alchemy - and a lot of other things that pretend to be science - is that there is no way of proving they are false - EVEN IF THEY ARE FALSE. Saying that a thing is falsifiable is not the same thing as saying that it is false. What falsifiable means - at least what the proponents of the notion intend it to mean - is that a thing is capable of being proven false - if it is in fact false.
It's a curious use of language, I admit, but scientists start from the premise that they don't know the answer (at least in the Popperian / Baconian view). They have this explanation, this hypothesis, about how things work, but they aren't sure about it. For it to be a scientific hypothesis, it must be falsifiable, that is "IF IT IS FALSE, there must be a way to prove that it is false."
For example, "God exists" is not a scientific hypothesis. It can't be proven false, even if it is false. Of course, this doesn't mean that god doesn't exist. Saying that something is not scientific does not mean that it's false or that it's useless or that it's wrong.
OTOH, evolution is falsifiable, because IF IT IS FALSE, then it can be proven false. (That doesn't say that it is is false.) How to prove evolution false? Well, find me a fossil hominid that has a clean date back to 2 billion years. I think that would pretty much be a nail in the coffin.
A lot of the terminology and conclusions of logic are very confusing. One thing that still nags at me is the phrase "ONLY IF." Really makes no sense linguistically and you have to memorize the meaning (actually, most people who use the phrase don't even think about it). Another weirdness is the value of the conditional p>q. If the premise is false, the value of the conditional is true regardless of the value of the conclusion. So F->F evaluates to T.
I'm not sure of a relation offhand, but this factiod, might even shed some light on 'falsifiability'.
k
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Thanks, FF. Goddam philosophers snow me under. I had not thought of the "engines" writer
as a philosophy enthusiast, and had no way of knowing he was using the word in a special sense.
At least it seems to have been worth discussing.
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Dear Dr. Bill,
Goddam philosophers snow me under. I had not thought of the "engines" writer
as a philosophy enthusiast. I don't think you need to be a philosophy enthusiast to try and find a reliable criterion to distinguish science from other products of the human mind. Popper is often quoted as having found the definitive solution. Yet even to accept a falsification of a given hypothesis, you need to believe certain premises, e.g. about causality. Furthermore, many fall into the trap of believing that there is a finite number of alternative hypotheses: so if all but one are falsified, the remaining one would have to be true..
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Furthermore, many fall into the trap of believing that there is a finite number of alternative hypotheses: so if all but one are falsified, the remaining one would have to be true..
From that well known philosopher, Sherlock Holmes:
“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
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“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
You will do me a middle-sized favor by telling me which story that's from. I've been quoting for some time my "favorite" Sherlock Holmes pronouncement, as "It is futile to theorize in advance of the data." and been unable to locate it. It sounds as if you have the accurate version, and I would appreciate the identification !
And following this thread it still isn't quite clear to me - is "falsifiable" then the same thing as "verifiable" (except for half-full-half-empty considerations), and both of them are surrogates for "susceptible of being proved true or false"?
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And following this thread it still isn't quite clear to me - is "falsifiability" then the same thing as "verifiability" except for half-full-half-empty considerations?
Falsification and Verification are diametrically opposed models of what constitutes science. Verificationism is what the positivists promoted. A theory is scientific if it can be verified - something along the lines of - if you design an experiment under which your theory explains the data, then you have verified your theory.
As Popper pointed out, however, this ignores Humes objection. How can you prove there are no white crows? How many instances of a thing must you see, before you can deduce that all things are like the ones you have witnessed. Answer: there is no logical reason to deduce this.
In Popper's view, everything is potentially false. However, you're justified in tentatively accepting any view, that has not been disproven.
Popper's views are currently being reevaluted by luminaries like Paul Kurtz and Martin Gardner. Apparently, few if any scientists actually work like this. (I think they miss the point - which is that we're talking about a logical basis for a system, not a methodology.)
k
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I think, in a sense, nothing in science can ever be proven true. We can only say that such and such seems to represent reality sufficiently well to enable us to predict what will happen in any given set of circumstances. The essence of the scientific method is to make a wild ass guess (WAG) and devise ways of proving it wrong by using it to make predictions. If the predictions prove wrong either scrap the WAG and start over or fine tune the WAG and make more predictions. Eventually the WAG becomes fine tuned enough that it rates the term SWAG. When it keeps working despite all the testing thrown at it it becomes a Theory.
Theory, like mist on eyeglass, obscure vision
- Falcon of Fong, quoting Freddie Fong
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The only philosophers I can abide are the pragmatists. If it works, it's OK.
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Dear wofahulicodoc: Is this the quote you were looking for?
Favorite Holmes' lines:
I have no data. It is a capital mistake to theorise
before one has data
(Scandal in Bohemia)
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Pooh-Bah
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You will do me a middle-sized favor by telling me which story that's from
That particular quote in full is "I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has the data. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts" and it comes from A Scandal in Bohemia, but there are similar sayings, such as "It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts" from The Adventure of the Second Stain and "It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment." from A Study in Scarlet. Self - plagiarism?
I prefer the first one as it seems to set the issue out more completely. As wwh has said, it is from A Scandal in Bohemia.
Ed: I'll get this right eventually! Maybe.
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Although I can see that the positivist view of science (it works, therefore it works) has its merits, I think the Popperian ideal of falsifiability provides some insurance of applicable congruity between theory and observed results that the purely practical positivist approach lacks.
Karl Popper wasn't saying that it has to be wrong to be right, he was merely saying that if you come up with a theory then you should be able to make predications based on your theory. If your predictions fail then you should look for another theory. This is "safer" than saying "I have observed an outcome and since my theory appears to fit what happened, my theory must be true".
Popperian proof is known as modus tolens. Positivists, on the other hand, use the approach known as modus ponens.
The two can be described a bit like this: For modus ponens your reasoning would go:
"If Faldage is a man, then Faldage is mortal.
Faldage is a man.
Therefore Faldage is mortal."
There is no necessary congruity between the assertion that Faldage is a man and the assertion that Faldage is mortal. How do you know that all men are mortal? You haven't observed every man, so you can't "prove" that all men are mortal.
Modus tolens, the Popperian (and Baconian) approach, is a twist on this:
"If Faldage is a god, then Faldage is immortal.
Faldage is not immortal
Therefore Faldage is not a god."
In this case, you have asserted that if Faldage is a god, then by definition he must be immortal. Faldage disobligingly proves he isn't mortal, so you therefore have incontrovertible proof that he is not a god.
Popper put it like this:
"If the theory is true, then the prediction is true.
The prediction is not true.
Therefore the theory is not true."
I pinched these examples - you have no idea how famous Faldage isn't - from my philosophy of science textbook from yonks back, but they should serve to show the positivists such as Dr Bill that modus tolens is in no way inconsistent with his own philosophy. It is, if anything, merely a safer approach to the verification of a theory through falsifiability than pure positivism is.
If you're interested in following this up (and I warn you, it's just a tad dry), then look for Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, New York: Harper & Row, 1968
- Pfranz
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Think in abstractions, not absolutes. The word constructions that we'all use to make our knee-jerking contrived points are based on our own mostly neatly preconceived notions about the nature of mankind and events. Bless us all. And if, in the event, that our preconceived notions can't stand the test of the rarified air of youralls, overalls, funny presumptions, then most of our'en's preconceived notions might rightly, and conceivably, need a small shift of contisanquous value... but I doubt it.  Milo. 
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Faldage disobligingly proves he isn't mortal
And Pfranz's "proof" disappears in a puff of logic.
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On one of those internet IQ tests floating around, one of the test items is a statement about truth, and the correct response, according to the test makers, is, in a nutshell, there is no knowing the truth. So, your IQ score goes up if you choose there is no knowing the truth. But there's probably no truth in any of the multiple-choice responses for that test item, so don't sweat it. Not that you were sweating it, but.
Anyway, I've been thinking about this falsifiable problem here for the last couple of days, and I have finally decided I like the word. For instance, in thinking about caffeine intake adversely affecting hydration (cross-thread ref. to I&A), I consider the view of a friend of mine who is a football coach. She says that caffeine is horrible, dehydrates, should not be consumed by athletes, and so on. I pointed out the Nebraska study to her, and she remains adamant about how horrible caffeine is. Well, in my way of thinking the Nebraska study falsified accepted views about caffeine and dehydration. Sure, caffeine is a diuretic, but the two test groups--those who didn't consume caffeine and the others who did--showed very little difference in their levels of hydration. So, I would say the theory about caffeine's adversely affecting levels of hydration in normal, healthy people was falsified, at least by the Nebraska study. And I also think that the Nebraska study at least makes me question the whole caffeine-dehydration issue enough that I would like to see further studies. And, being a biased caffeine addict, I especially want to hear reports of studies that will support my intake of most honorable coffee.
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I've had Logic of Scientific Discovery for years, but haven't gotten around to reading it. I have, however, read Objective Knowledge http://geocities.com/elbillaf/read_001.html - twice. I think it explains the idea very clearly and makes a strong case for it. k
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falsifiability - A property of any proposition for which it is possible to specify a set of circumstances the occurrence of which would demonstrate that the proposition is false.
i think that set of circumstances is a clue.
i like the word but i also always had problems with good understanding of it. after reading this discussion i have no more.
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Pooh-Bah
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WW, do you have a link to this tantalising study that you can share with us please? I have colleagues, relatives and at least one wife who all go on at me - fortunately not in concert - regarding this subject. Also it has never been clarified to me whether decaff coffee and tea are also diuretics, perhaps this study deals with that. Thanks, D.
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Here's the link to the caffeine study done in Nebraska: http://www.pressrepublican.com/special/pulse_lib/1002p4a.htmI must add that in rereading this information, it appears only 18 people were used in the study, and that ain't much of a study at all. Drat. 
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18? That does dent its credibility somewhat. Was it financed by the coffee industry?
Ed: just realised I posted my question in the wrong thread. Sorry about that - or was Mystic Meg at work on the board again?
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