How could you falsify macroevolution?

[GePap]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
You defined Truth as a sufficiently good understanding of all situations which human beings would come into contact with. You then said that there would be some point in the future where we could say that we had the Truth. I demonstrated that further scientific research would bring more exotic situations into contact with human beings through technology, some of which might not be well-explained by your earlier understanding, thus your Truth would still be out of reach.

NO, I defined TRUTH as that blueprint. I also asked, if we knew ever datum, even if we did not have a single explination, did we not know the truth.

Nor did I say it hasd anything to do with "situations human biengs would come into contact with". At one point I said usefull for individual living in this universe. I also spoke of relevance. Neither of which even hint at your hackneyed attempt at describing my defintion.

What I ASKED was whether you can reach a point where the difference is insignificant- perhaps it is from that that you extrapolate your statements. That isn't a new defintion of TRUTH, which was defined early. That is a question of whether a lower truth is good enough for us to equate it with the capital t version.

Bu don't worry , LC made much more pertinent comments. Maybe it had to do wih the fact he has a smaller penchant for making assumptions as to what someone else said and answering those, as opposed to answering what someone DID say.

[Odin]

Originally posted by 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.

This is why I don't think anyone can find truth, we can only find better and better aproximations of the truth and reality because we only have a finite intellect and because of our personal biases. This is why falsification is important, all theories are aproximations, and with thus be eventually overturned or modified, or found to break down at certain scales.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by GePap
No, that is Poppers theory. I find it funny, you making absolute statements of truth....

Of course we're talking about empirical truth, which is a different being.

You have faith in the process. That is different from having faith in the outcome. You would not folow the process if you did not believe in it.

That's still faith, and further shows why one can never arrive at 100% absolute certainty of the TRUTH. We accept on faith a lot of things about how reality works even to begin empirical science. Many of these assumptions are untestable and might be wrong. So the reality science describes is conditional, both in terms of outcome and process.

You can never be sure of anything- you could never be sure there is no God, and that what you are currently experiencing is nothing but a delusion brought about by a fever. There is no logical set-up you can devise to know with 100% certainty ANYTHING, even your own name. But is the situation is that absurd, then to a certain point, its irrelevant, and therefore there is no difference if we decide to ignore it and behave differently.

Whether or not we're 99.99% certain of something or only 50% sure of something is a huge difference. So there's no need to go into solipsism, as knowledge of something is by degree--it's not an either/or proposition.

But while the difference to you between 99.9999999 and 100 may be irrelevant, it certainly isn't to science. As KH already pointed out, there have been instances where known science applies to the vast majority of situations but then gets blown apart in the extreme. Is it relevant to how you live your day to day life? No, but then again, probably neither is the difference between 80 and 90 percent certainty. But it is important to science.

The bottom line, again, is that science simply isn't about establishing anything other than conditional truths. Empiricism is incapable of doing otherwise, because it is impossible for us to test anything infinitely.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
You mentioned the spontaneous generation of species. That's not inconsistent with macroevolution. What's important is what happens after that.

Spontaneous generation = special creation

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by Odin
Why, might I ask? It always made sense to me.

Because I would argue that certain scientific facts aren't falsifiable.

Popper's test applies only to theories.

Facts are just recorded observations. You can throw out a theory without touching the body of accumulated facts. For example, relativity replacing Newton's theory of gravity.

[Bill3000]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Spontaneous generation = special creation

It might be considered a form of Creationism if spontaneous generation occured in modern day earth, which it doesn't. The concept of the origin of life is an entirely different beast altogether.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by GePap
When he question the use of "being able to falsify", as in having to prove wrong is necessary, he was.

Its not the ability to disprove but the ability to test experimentally that matters.

I think Popper was very careful in choosing his words.

It is not whether you can test a hypothesis experimentally that matters. What matters is whether you can set up a test to show that such a hypothesis (or theory) is incorrect or not.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Spontaneous generation = special creation

So?

Creation is not inconsistent with macroevolution in the strictest sense.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
It is not whether you can test a hypothesis experimentally that matters. What matters is whether you can set up a test to show that such a hypothesis (or theory) is incorrect or not.

Huh? What use would an experiment that didn't test to show whether a hypothesis was incorrect or not be?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
What use would an experiment that didn't test to show whether a hypothesis was incorrect or not be?

Beats me, but it is entirely plausible to have a hypothesis that can be tested but can't be shown to be false.

For example, aether. The brilliant Michaelson-Morley experiment showed that there's no aether wind, but the equally brilliant Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction suggested that you can't falsify aether that way.

[Jon Miller]

I know some physicists who are still including some sort of aether in their theories

JM

[GePap]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Popper's test applies only to theories.

Facts are just recorded observations. You can throw out a theory without touching the body of accumulated facts. For example, relativity replacing Newton's theory of gravity.

And is science only about making theories? Or is the act of collecting those observations, the foundation of any theory, the most basic of scientific acts?

[Jon Miller]

every measurement or observation has some uncertainty

JM

[GePap]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
every measurement or observation has some uncertainty

JM

And for many, that "uncertainty" is beyond negligible, and irrelevant.

Not all fields of science have the existencial angst of physics. Maybe cause most fields of science don't have to keep looking at the bounderies of our abilities to observe.

[Jon Miller]

but yes, science is about the theories...

they allow one to predict

a bunch of observations are just history...

Jon Miller