How could you falsify macroevolution?

[KrazyHorse]

I particularly loved the "serious" discussion you had with Kuci about ivory towers, the high ground and spy satellites. What a wonderfully-informing, serious, relevant argument that was.

[GePap]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Son, you really haven't made a single serious point since you started posting here. My estimation of you has gone down with every sentence I've seen in this thread.

Great. Then hopefully one day I will never have to reply to you, as you will have decided then never to reply to me. That would seem the best possible solution for everyone, so lets start now. Bye Bye.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
It's useful to remember that Popper didn't consider being non-scientific to be necessarily bad. Indeed, he had quite alot to say of the importance of "metaphysical research programs" for the advancement of science.

Funny, given the low regard so many "scientists" here hold for anything metaphysical in nature. Many participants in this thread specially.

I would have thought it obvious that we will never reach a such point. As KH says, there's an infinity of experiments to make before we get there.

Well, see, I don't see why it is obvious that the number of possible experiments must be infinate. Or better yet, whether the number of relevant experiments is infinite. We need not know every exact point of data, as long as we are confident that we can with useufl accuracy predict most events. At that point, while in theory we haven;t reached the end, in practice the difference is negligable.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by GePap


OK, why? What would the rationale for further doubt be if you were to theoretically reach that point at which the "blueprint" were shown in its entirety, as long as you trusted the methodology by which these blueprints came to be in front of you?

Say I have the blueprints in my hand (or head, rather). Every single experiment agrees beautifully with the predictions I make from it, within the margins of experimental error. Jolly good.

Now, KH, down the door, has another theory, which agrees exceedingly well with the blueprint, so well, in fact, that no difference whatosever can be detected within the accuracy of the best measurements we can make.

Until someone manages to improve experimental accuracy to the point where the difference in predictions can be resolved, there's no way of telling who's right and who's wrong.

And if and when that day comes around, maybe someone has yet another theory, which agrees even more exceedingly well with the blueprints' predictions, so well the difference can't be seen even at the new, improved level of accuracy.

I believe you get the point.

[KrazyHorse]

Well, see, I don't see why it is obvious that the number of possible experiments must be infinate. Or better yet, whether the number of relevant experiments is infinite. We need not know every exact point of data, as long as we are confident that we can with useufl accuracy predict most events. At that point, while in theory we haven;t reached the end, in practice the difference is negligable.

The problem is not merely one of interpolation, but also extrapolation.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by GePap


Funny, given the low regard so many "scientists" here hold for anything metaphysical in nature. Many participants in this thread specially.

Well, that's their problem. Since Popper's falsification criterion is metaphysical (well, according to Popper, it is, at any rate), I suppose they should be on che's side.

Well, see, I don't see why it is obvious that the number of possible experiments must be infinate. Or better yet, whether the number of relevant experiments is infinite. We need not know every exact point of data, as long as we are confident that we can with useufl accuracy predict most events. At that point, while in theory we haven;t reached the end, in practice the difference is negligable.

This represents a retreat from an attempt to find the blueprints to merely looking for useful approximations.

[GePap]

IN that theoretical, yes I see the point. I will confess though to stating that I don't see how different the predictions your theory and KH's theory were making could be at that point, unless we assume extremely poor accuracy of measurement. But if we are assuming a very high accuracy to start with, how different could the two theories be?

And if the differences are very small, how important are they to us being able to make statements about the quality of our overall knowledge?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by GePap
IN that theoretical, yes I see the point. I will confess though to stating that I don't see how different the predictions your theory and KH's theory were making could be at that point, unless we assume extremely poor accuracy of measurement.

The problem is not merely one of interpolation, but also extrapolation.

[KrazyHorse]

There are a number of current physical theories which predict vastly similar results at all energy scales which we have probed thus far, and vastly dissimilar results when pushed much higher.

In fact, the so-called Standard Model of particle physics undergoes a catastrophe when used to predict anything occuring at greater than a certain energy scale (everything turns to infinity).

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by GePap
IN that theoretical, yes I see the point. I will confess though to stating that I don't see how different the predictions your theory and KH's theory were making could be at that point, unless we assume extremely poor accuracy of measurement. But if we are assuming a very high accuracy to start with, how different could the two theories be?

Not particularly.

Edit: Not paticularly in the experiments we can preform, that is. As KH points out, they can have arbitrarily different implications in unprobed situations.

And if the differences are very small, how important are they to us being able to make statements about the quality of our overall knowledge?

That depends on the metric for the quality of our knowledge.

If the goal of science is finding the blueprints, then the difference is important indeed. If our aims providing as good predictions as possible, the difference is immaterial.

This is, in a nutshell, why science has largely abandoned the search for the blueprints in favour of that for successively better models.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
This represents a retreat from an attempt to find the blueprints to merely looking for useful approximations.

Maybe all we need is the Ikea type blueprints, as opposed to the fancy set drawn by some professional company.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by GePap


Maybe all we need is the Ikea type blueprints, as opposed to the fancy set drawn by some professional company.

Need?

The search for the blueprint is, in a sense, a spiritual quest - Hawkings is a good example of the mindset.

For practical purposes - technological applications, predictions of the paths of earth-threatening asteroids, etc - you usually get away without using even the best approximations known.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Last Conformist

Need?

The search for the blueprint is, in a sense, a spiritual quest - Hawkings is a good example of the mindset.

That search is fundamentally human. Revealed truth is just a lazy way to get there.

[KrazyHorse]

Consistency with experimental evidence and similarity between theories are only meaningful when the range of situations they will be applied to is specifically defined. Newton's Laws of Motion and Universal Gravitation are in good accordance with GR and with experimental results when I'm putting up a skyscraper. Things break down when I apply them to a black hole. Similarly, we know that GR works on the scale of galaxies. What about cosmologically? That's an open question. The Standard Model works everywhere up to 100 GeV or so. What about 200? There's good reason to believe that it doesn't. The theories that are in line to replace it are similar in their predictions up to 100 GeV and dissimilar above it. They're also radically different in their fundamental hypotheses.

[Last Conformist]

You're suggesting I'm not fully human? You'd not be the first ...



Have I convinced you that science cannot take us to a certain knowledge of the blueprints?