How could you falsify macroevolution?

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by GePap


How could it be kept out of a discussion on the nature of science?

You can't hold a discussion while purposefully ignoring the 800 lb gorrilla in the room.

Well, there are truths and truths.

When a scientist says that the observed motion of the earth conforms to a Newtonian trajectory to some degree of accuracy, this is of course intended to be taken as a truth, much like when I tell my flatmate it' raining outside. The importance of this sort of truth is, of course, why everybody gets so riled up about scientific fraud.

(Popperianism, of course, assumes this sort of truth - without it, we can't falsify anything!)

But this, I have been assuming, isn't what you mean by "TRUTH". Unless I'm misreading you, you meaning something like the "God's blueprints" I mentioned above - the actual regularities behind natural phenomena.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by GePap
Or even if one wants to be like LC, has it been verified that the bodies of the solar system rotate around the center of mass of the system? Has this been verified? Has it been shown to be true? Or is it simply to be accepted as the current conditonal model?

They certainly seem to. We have numerous position/time measurements of the planets which are consistent to a high degree of accuracy with the so-called "heliocentric" model. We even have measurements which can detect the wobble of the Sun about the true centre of mass of the system, and measurements which detect the (integrated) effect of relativistic frame dragging on rotational motion.

None of which is to say that all this isn't simply happenstance. It could be that our current understanding of gravitation is completely wrong and things just look the way they do through a fluke. Until you come up with measurements which demonstrate a deviation from predictions I don't think I'll go with that option.

Strong evidence makes for strongly-held theories. They need thus need strong counter-evidence to be abandoned.

I'm not willing to state it as 100% fact that things work the way I think they do because I'm not a ****ing idiot.

GePap,you really need to quit while you're behind. You're just spinning your wheels here. No real scientist believes that the Laws of Thermodynamics or Newton's Laws of Motion are actual laws. Hell, we've seen them being violated in certain circumstances. They're just really good approximations.

[GePap]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse

Strong evidence makes for strongly-held theories. They need thus need strong counter-evidence to be abandoned.

I'm not willing to state it as 100% fact that things work the way I think they do because I'm not a ****ing idiot.

GePap,you really need to quit while you're behind. You're just spinning your wheels here. No real scientist believes that the Laws of Thermodynamics or Newton's Laws of Motion are actual laws. Hell, we've seen them being violated in certain circumstances. They're just really good approximations.

Approximations of WHAT exactly?

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by GePap


And is that a fact? Or simply a recap of the current conditional model, for which you will vouch only so long as it lasts?

As mentioned, we have very good observational reasons to believe that this particular model is incomplete.

This is why I brought forth Everest. As long as define what the "height" of a mountain is (distance from what point exactly), you can with certainty state what the height of any point on earth was at any one given moment in time. That factoid is true, in so far as it just IS.

Well, you can make a measurement yielding an approximation of the height. That would then be taken as an observational fact - a lower-case truth, if you will.

So, can this state of knowing what simply IS, be reached with other situations? Is there any question left, for example, as to what the main purpose of the heart is? Have we discovered the truth about its main fuction, or do the scientists in you all out there tell you that, no, in fact, that is simply what we happen to think now, and perhaps in 2000 years we will have found out that the primary purpose of the heart was something other than as a blood pump?

I don't think that the purpose of a heart is a well-defined concept.

But that hearts do pump blood is an observed fact.

These are the "observed phenomena" I refered to in a previous post, which science is to explain. Their actual collection is, I suppose, a non-scientific endeavour in the Popperian sense - scientificality would only apply to their explanations.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by GePap




Approximations of WHAT exactly?

Of what we will measure, dear Liza.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by GePap




Approximations of WHAT exactly?

We like to think they're good approximations of the actual regularities of the universe (I need a expression for this, but I don't think "Laws of Nature" really works - too much baggage), but what they really are are methods to create good approximations to the trajectories, etc, we have observed.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Last Conformist

Well, there are truths and truths.

When a scientist says that the observed motion of the earth conforms to a Newtonian trajectory to some degree of accuracy, this is of course intended to be taken as a truth, much like when I tell my flatmate it' raining outside. The importance of this sort of truth is, of course, why everybody gets so riled up about scientific fraud.

(Popperianism, of course, assumes this sort of truth - without it, we can't falsify anything!)

But this, I have been assuming, isn't what you mean by "TRUTH". Unless I'm misreading you, you meaning something like the "God's blueprints" I mentioned above - the actual regularities behind natural phenomena.

I am talking about some less abstract truth.

I do not believe that science is simply to be defined as an endless set of ever more accurate example that never get there to the end, if only because there is a point at which 9.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999 might as well be stated to be 10, and for all intents and humanly purposes it is 10.

Therefore I disagree with the view postulated above by others that it is part of very definition of science to assume that it is impossible to get the "blueprints" through empiricism.

[KrazyHorse]

Do you think before you post? Because right now you're sounding more and more like a machine set to randomly string together sentences with random keywords in them.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
These are the "observed phenomena" I refered to in a previous post, which science is to explain. Their actual collection is, I suppose, a non-scientific endeavour in the Popperian sense - scientificality would only apply to their explanations.

And in this I would disagree with Popper. I think that the collection of these observed phenomena is in itself a scientific act. This is, after all, the underlying basis of trying to make any explination. You can't even begin to attempt to create an explination without gathering all the necessary data. And you have to assume that data is a "truth".

The question is, if at some point, we have collected all the data- how could we have not gotten the whole "truth"?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by GePap
Therefore I disagree with the view postulated above by others that it is part of very definition of science to assume that it is impossible to get the "blueprints" through empiricism.

I don't care whether or not you disagree with it.

Until you perform every possible measurement (of which there are literally an infinite number) you cannot be certain that a surprise isn't lurking around the next corner.

This is self-evident, and all your flustering will not make it any less so.

In this thread you've demonstrated an ignorance of the methodology of science, the current state of scientific theories and of the attitudes of actual scientists.

Who are you to comment on something you so clearly don't understand?

[GePap]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Do you think before you post? Because right now you're sounding more and more like a machine set to randomly string together sentences with random keywords in them.

Serious discussion going on here. Take your snarky drunken ass elsewhere, or participate like a man, or at least, your best impersonation of one.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by GePap
I am talking about some less abstract truth.

Less abstract than what?

Therefore I disagree with the view postulated above by others that it is part of very definition of science to assume that it is impossible to get the "blueprints" through empiricism.

Empiricism not being an algorithmic process, one can't state with certainty () where it will lead. There is nothing we know today that would allow us to conclude with any confidence that someone could not hit on the actual "blueprints".

I do maintain one cannot know that those blueprints are the blueprints.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by GePap


Serious discussion going on here. Take your snarky drunken ass elsewhere, or participate like a man, or at least, your best impersonation of one.

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.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Last Conformist

Less abstract than what?

Moral truths for one. Abstractions like right and wrong.

Empiricism not being an algorithmic process, one can't state with certainty () where it will lead. There is nothing we know today that would allow us to conclude with any confidence that someone could not hit on the actual "blueprints".

If I understand you correctly here, then I agree.

I do maintain one cannot know that those blueprints are the blueprints.

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?

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by GePap


And in this I would disagree with Popper. I think that the collection of these observed phenomena is in itself a scientific act. This is, after all, the underlying basis of trying to make any explination. You can't even begin to attempt to create an explination without gathering all the necessary data. And you have to assume that data is a "truth".

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.

The question is, if at some point, we have collected all the data- how could we have not gotten the whole "truth"?

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.