Re: Question on Falsification of Common Descent

On 25 Aug 2006 07:55:56 -0700, in talk.origins , "Kent"
<musquodster@xxxxxxxxx> in
<1156517756.262142.56460@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Robert Grumbine wrote:

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.


Isaac Asimov had an interesting article "The Relativity of Wrong"
(published in the Skeptical Inquirier). His calim is basically that all
theories are worng but some are more wrong than others. Newton's Laws
are wrong but less wrong than Aristotelian physics and more wrong than
quantum mechanics. The question is not whether a model is right or
wrong but how wrong. In this context it makes no sense to talk about a
theory being a fact. That Newtonian physics is not absolutely true
does not effect its usefulness in describing planetary motion. As I
said "fact" is not a useful concept.

Facts are descriptions, theories/models are explanations. Both have
their uses. Theories do not become a fact, but an explanation can get
so well established that it is a description as well. Consider orbits.
Orbits are explanations for our observations of the planets. Orbits
are also fact we (classically) explain with momentum/gravity.



--
Matt Silberstein

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