How could you falsify macroevolution?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GePap
Right. So the extra fuel will cost, what? 100 Million dollars?

At least that, yes. That's a rather significant amount of money, even for a 4 billion dollar satellite.

I believe you have that backwards. Close to earth over target, far form earth when not.

I know you're wrong. Ever heard of Kepler's laws?

No, since if you can fool a satellite with high resolution over the exact area you will be working in, how hard is it to fool a satellite with poor resolution.

Dude, resolution is cheap and improves all the time. Orbital mechanics do not.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
I don't know.

I also don't know where the notion of law = beyond doubt comes from. A "law", in the original sense, is after all not a description but a prescription, open to neither test nor doubt.

Yes. so why would anyone lable a scientific oncept after something that one neither tests nor doubt?

(how can something be closed to doubt but not beyond it?)

That is why I ask Popper's opinion on the "laws" of Thermodynamics.

[Nostromo]

My point is criticsm at Poppers use of language, which you seem to agree with.

What's wrong with the use of the word "refutation" or "falsification"? (He hated the word "falsification", though, which was used by his translators) You can agree or not with him, but Popper didn't think we can verify ideas, he didn't think that we can establish the truth of ideas. The only thing we can do is to refute them. So using "refutation" is coherent.

[Kuciwalker]

Gepap, give it up. You can start arguing science when you actually learn some. If you knew any physics you'd already understand the spy satellite orbits.

[GePap]

Originally posted by nostromo


What's wrong with the use of the word "refutation" or "falsification"? (He hated the word "falsification, though, which was used by his translators) You can agree or not with him, but Popper didn't think we can verify ideas, he didn't think that we can establish the truth of ideas. The only thing we can do is to refute them. So using "refutation" is coherent.

Refute is better than falsify as a word.

The notion of whether verification is intellectually possible is interesting. After all, I do not think that scientists as a whole have given up the notion of being able to find THE TRUTH, have they? After all, if all you seek is A truth, you could have stopped looking long before.

[Ramo]

The key element in science is that it makes verifiable predictions.

Macroevolution predicts that in response to selective pressures, forms of life may change their genetic makeup over time to better suit their environment. Thus, macroevolutionary theory predicts (as Darwin did) that we'll find fossil records to bridge certain evolutionary transitions. If we could find absolutely no fossil records of "transitional forms," that would call macroevolution into question. But of course, that's not the case.

But macroevolution is merely accumulated microevolutionary steps. We can verify microevolution very easily: take penecilin and a apply a little to a bacteria population every day; eventually, this population will become resistant. So, an effective falsification would be to find some reason why microevolutionary steps couldn't accumulate. Say, after a certain number of steps, we invariably see the hand of God strike down the creature for its defiance of Biblical Law.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Gepap, give it up. You can start arguing science when you actually learn some. If you knew any physics you'd already understand the spy satellite orbits.

Just read the damned links boy, and realize that IMINT satellites, the type you spoke of, are low orbit.

Sorry to deflate your ego.

[Ramo]

After all, I do not think that scientists as a whole have given up the notion of being able to find THE TRUTH, have they?

It's "the truth" (more specifically, the most accurate predictions) consistent with observation.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by GePap
After all, I do not think that scientists as a whole have given up the notion of being able to find THE TRUTH, have they?

I hate to tell you this, but yes, we have.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by GePap


Yes. so why would anyone lable a scientific oncept after something that one neither tests nor doubt?

Because some old Greek thought that the world was following prescriptive rules set down by some deity with nothing better to do.

(how can something be closed to doubt but not beyond it?)

Sorry but I don't understand what you are asking here.

That is why I ask Popper's opinion on the "laws" of Thermodynamics.

As said, I don't know. I doubt he was much concerned with such issues of terminology - after all, every scientist and philosopher of science knows what is meant by a scientific "law" today.

A similar, perhaps more drastic example is "imaginary" - the mathematical meaning has only a historical connection to the everyday meaning.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by GePap After all, I do not think that scientists as a whole have given up the notion of being able to find THE TRUTH, have they?

I'm sure many scientists privately dream of finding The Truth - the Creator's blueprint for creation, as it were, - but the party line is very much that science isn't about The Truth, but about finding the models that best explain and predict observed phenomena.

You philosophers have done a good job of convincing us that The Truth is unattainable.

[Nostromo]

After all, I do not think that scientists as a whole have given up the notion of being able to find THE TRUTH, have they? After all, if all you seek is A truth, you could have stopped looking long before.

It may seem paradoxical, but neither has Popper: he believes that scientists do and should seek truth. He just doesn't believe that we can verify or prove a given theory. However, he believes that we are moving closer and closer to truth. Truth is the north of our intellectual compass. If you refute a theory, you know you're not going in the right direction. You have to replace it with a better theory.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by nostromo
One of Popper's example is marxist theory. According to him, marxist theory was refutable at first and, hence, was scientific. But after that things degenerated. The problem was that Marxists were too dogmatic and used every dirty trick in the book in order to save their theory from refutation. Thus Marxist theory, while refutable in principle, became irrefutable in practice (and hence pseudoscientific), thanks to the Marxist's intellectual dishonnesty. Now we know why Che doesn't like Popper

Actually, Popper is right about some Marxists, in as far as that goes, and his analysis of Marxism is one of the better I've seen, but he still get's it wrong in the end.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by GePap
on the "Gepap doesn;t know science" trope. It is getting old, beyond being obviously wrong. You guys need new material.

Hey, you were the one who didn't know what "falsifiable" meant, which is a basic terminology undergrads of science learn. Whether or not Popper used poor wording is besides the point, since it's wording that scientists fully understand.

Of course, then there's also this:

After all, I do not think that scientists as a whole have given up the notion of being able to find THE TRUTH, have they?

As has been shown, this is not the case.

If you don't want to be accused of not understanding science, then you should stop saying things like this.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by nostromo
Popper didn't think we can verify ideas, he didn't think that we can establish the truth of ideas.

And that's what I disagree with.