Re: Question on Falsification of Common Descent

In article <1156342550.941957.5940@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Kent <musquodster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

John Wilkins wrote:

[snip]

This is always a possibility. But I would suggest that Hume's point is
about the justification of a knowledge claim rather than about attaining
knowledge claims in the first place. Hume certainly accepted that we
*do* make inductive inferences. The question is whether we are justified
in doing so.

Likewise Popper - the test he applies is whether it *could* be
falsified, but he needed more and appealed to verisimiltude, or
truthlikeness. Of course, under his scheme, this is hidden from us, but
as a theory survives repeated attempts at falsification, according to
Popper, it can be treated as more verisimilitudinous. Whether one wants
to adopt Popper's view of science or not, everyone accepts that some
theories are as solidly embedded as they can be.

Common descent can be "verified" in one of two ways - we can observe
that it happens (which we have in limited cases), in which case it is
like one of the positivistic "protocol sentences" that are not subject
to falsification - or it can be shown that all available evidence
supports it so strongly that it is unlikely to be rejected at any time
in the future, and this is what our present position is (with
Interpretation A).

Of course we can *conceive* that there might be ways in which it will be
later challenged, but possible ways in science are like possible
athletes in an actual race. We do not say that the winner of a race
actually isn't, because Superman might have raced against him. We say he
has won. As things stand now, common descent (A) has won the race in
many cases. If a new hypothesis comes up, then, and only then, will
there be another race. Right now, though, the mere formal *possibility*
that there could be a future challenger does not mean that we have not
now confirmed common descent (A). When Superman shows up, then we'll see
(The Flash can beat him in a running race anyway).

I finish with a quote from David Hull, which I have used before:

"Yet another ambiguity constantly crops up in our discussions of
scientific theories. Are they hypotheses or facts? Can they be "proved"?
Do scientists have the right to say that they "know" anything? While
interviewing the scientists engaged in the controversies under
investigation, I asked, "Do you think that science is provisional, that
scientists have to be willing to reexamine any view that they hold if
necessary?" All the scientists whom I interviewed responded
affirmatively. Later, I asked, "Could evolutionary theory be false?" To
this question I received three different answers. Most responded quite
promptly that, no, it could not be false. Several opponents of the
consensus then current responded that not only could it be false but
also it was false. A very few smiled and asked me to clarify my
question. "Yes, any scientific theory could be false in the abstract,
but given the current state of knowledge, the basic axioms of
evolutionary theory are likely to continue to stand up to
investigation."

Philosophers tend to object to such conceptual plasticity. So do
scientists -- when this plasticity works against them. Otherwise, they
do not mind it at all. In fact, they get irritated when some pedant
points it out."

Science as a Process, 1988, p7
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."

Basically you have ignored my point. In the past, models that were
considered absolutely established have been shown to have shortcomings.

Perhaps scientists have learned something about what things to claim
'absolutely established' over the last few centuries? You'll notice
that 'Laws' are seldom pronounced any more. Maybe there's a reason?

This has happened more than once. The problem is that pointed out by
Hume: no number of correct observations can prove a model universally
correct. True, Hume had problems dealing with the implications of his
claim. In science it was largely ignored until classical mechanics
being replaced by quantum mechanics showed the arguement in action. The
failure of induction, like evolution, has now been observed repeatedly.
This had a profound effect on the philosophy of science. Kuhn was
trained as physicists and Popper quotes Max Born. Any reasonable
philosophy of science must deal with physics between 1900 and 1925. Or
geology between 1915 and 1960 ie between Wegener and the acceptance of
continental drift. In science the concept of fact is not useful and
frequently counter productive. A scientific model can no more be a fact
than a road map can be. As for your quote, scientist frequently are too
attached to their own models.

Indeed. Nevertheless, in spite of your comments about Newton being
overthrown and the like, we still use Newtonian mechanics. Rather peculiar
thing w.r.t. your implicit argument that once something is shown to
have shortcomings, it is absolutely _dis_established. Newton's mechanics,
we discovered, are still excellent and excellently well established.
What changed is that we discovered that in regimes (the very fast -->
special relativity, the rapidly accelerating --> general relativity,
the very small --> quantum mechanics) in which it hadn't been tested
before, it wasn't fully correct. But its incorrectness is a matter of
limiting parameters. All three theories converge to Newtonian mechanics
as the appropriate parameter (v/c, for instance) goes to the appropriate
limit.

If 'facts' are useless at best, and an obstruction to doing science,
how is it that you do science? Scientists I know set about trying to
explain things, observations (which they think are facts) for instance.
If there aren't facts, it seems there's nothing for them to explain
and we can all go home.

--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences

.

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