Re: Science = 100% falsifiability? Really?

On Dec 13, 2:22 pm, Seanpit <seanpitnos...@naturalselection.
0catch.com> wrote:
On Dec 12, 6:27 pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:



On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:18:12 -0800 (PST), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Seanpit
<seanpitnos...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

On Dec 12, 4:09 pm, Free Lunch <lu...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Many different claims have been shown to be false because the evidence
shows they are false. Few scientists see any point in further piling on
evidence to further show that a false claim is false. Adding absolutism
to your argument shows nothing but a grasp at any straw -- an attempt to
take a very practical, pragmatic approach to learning, and turn it into
some idealized perfection that, not so incidentally, destroys it.

Exactly! Now, try explaining that concept to Richard.

Where did Richard claim otherwise?

My Question:
"The same thing is true if Arnold Schwarzenegger happened to win the
California Lottery 5 times in a row. Can the hypothesis of random
chance be completely falsified?"

Richard's response:
"It can't be falsified at all. That's why it isn't a valid
hypothesis. . . You need to propose a potential observation or
measurement which could *NOT* be explained by 'luck'."

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/5dec4357a4652e72

Also, in the first post of this thread Richard wrote:

"The turkey's hypothesis was falsified completely, utterly and
absolutely."

You see, according to Richard, *all* valid scientific hypotheses much
be subject to the potential of "absolute" falsification.

Where did I write that?
My word Sean: What does it tell us about the validity of your
arguments when you have this apparently compulsive need to
misrepresent everything your critics write?

He doesn't
seem to understand that many if not most scientific hypotheses and
theories that suggest a non-random cause for a particular phenomenon
could be wrong.

How on earth do you extract that from what I wrote?

You still have not explained how one can falsify "luck".

Random chance could actually have been responsible.

Quite so.
This is why one cannot falsify "luck".

It is just after a certain point of testing, the odds of random chance
truly being responsible are considered so remote as to be
statistically insignificant.

But what if it *is* just "luck"?
How can one falsify "luck"?

This is where p-values and the like come
into play when evaluating the null vs. the alternate hypothesis.

p-values are a measure of the statistical support for a particular
hypothesis of distribution.
They are not a measure of "luck".

This
is why the hypothesis of deliberate design for the same person winning
the California Lottery 5 times in a row would be a valid scientific
hypothesis - even though it may not be absolutely falsifiable.

So how do you falsify "luck"?

It
carries with it a high degree of predictive value.

That is what science is all about - predictive value, not absolute
perfection of the prediction.

Who on earth ever said that it was?

If predictions could be made with
absolute perfection, science wouldn't be needed. Yet, Richard's
argument suggests that because random causes cannot be ruled out in to
an absolute degree, that no hypothesis of non-random origin can be
scientific - because a random origin could always be the true
answer.

Actually, I've never made that argument.

That is not the same as saying that an "hypothesis of random chance"
can be falsified.

One can apply statistical tools to a dataset of numbers and determine
the likelihood of an event occurring,

One can test hypotheses of distribution of data against the dataset,
and determine how well the data fit to the hypothetical model.

What one cannot do is test the assertion that an event happened by
"random chance".

One can show where it falls within the statistical range of
probabilities, but all that can do is to tell us the probability that
the event occurred, which is something completely different.

To test the "hypothesis" of "random chance" you need to think of a
potential *falsifier* of "random chance", not of the statistical
probability of an event occurring.

Richard extends this same thinking to hypotheses concerning
deliberate vs. non-deliberate production or manufacture. He argues:

"What observation or measurement could show that the object could not
have been made by an unknown "non-deliberate" process?"

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/e9e9c3118c46a9ac?hl=e...

He suggests here that because an unknown non-deliberate cause or
origin for a given phenomenon cannot be ruled out to any absolute
degree that a hypothesis suggesting this possibility to be so remote
as to be insignificant is not a valid scientific hypothesis. Yet,
this conclusion forms the basis of several sciences, to include
anthropology, forensic science, and SETI.

It quite specifically does *not* include SETI, Sean!

Scientists have to have at
least some idea as to the potential and limits of what non-deliberate
natural processes are likely able to achieve before they can be
clearly distinguished this potentiality from certain activities of
intelligent and deliberately acting agents as they produce true
"artifacts". I mean really, if natural non-deliberate processes are
likely able to produce the same or a similar phenomenon as what could
have been produced by deliberate intelligent action, how can one tell
artifact from non-artifact? I suggest that it can be done by knowing,
to at least some useful if not perfect degree, the limitations of one
potentiality vs. the other that one can reasonably predict a non-
random vs. a random origin for a given phenomenon with better than
even odds of being right.

Blah, blah, blah, Sean.

You are right and everyone else in the world is wrong.

It's about time you presented this paradigm-breaking scientific
insight to the waiting world.

What someone with confidence in their convictions would do at this
stage is to write it all up in the form of a paper to be submitted for
publication in an academic journal. After all, it's clear that after
five years of posting you're not going to persuade anyone here that
you're right, so why not present you "theory" to those who you think
capable of understanding it.


The same thing is true of Richard's oft-repeated claims that detecting
signs of manufacture is needed to detect artifacts. The same problem
applies, however. One can't detect signs of deliberate manufacture or
the use of deliberately handled "tools" if non-deliberate processes of
nature are capable of producing the same or similar effects.

It's a bloody good clue though, and better than guesswork.
Science isn't about absolutes, Sean.

Again,
one is left with having to hypothesize concerning the limits of the
ability of something that can never be known to an absolute degree.
But, that's the nature of science. It isn't about perfection.

It is about evidence though, and the interpretation of that evidence.
It's not about making sweeping assertions about the results of
statistical tests which are pragmatically impossible to carry out and
then lying that you have carried out such tests, Sean.

Now run away from the challenge of putting your convictions on the
line by writing them up formally as an academic paper.

RF


Bob C.

Sean Pitmanwww.DetectingDesign.com

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Bushie killing science education in Tejas
    ... regardless of any advances in science or research technology. ... scientists, all the textbooks and in all the classrooms. ... They had no evidence at the time, no idea HOW they worked, but they ... Then you run experiments to try to falsify the theory. ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)
  • Re: Bushie killing science education in Tejas
    ... regardless of any advances in science or research technology. ... scientists, all the textbooks and in all the classrooms. ... They had no evidence at the time, no idea HOW they worked, but they ... Then you run experiments to try to falsify the theory. ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)
  • Re: Rant: Big Bang theory ridiculous
    ... device an experiment that could falsify it. ... Although there is a lot of "positive" evidence for relativity ... science took a negative approach (i.e., ... "But most scientists believe that "somehow, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Mischaracterization of ID?
    ... have been reasonably well educated by massive reading of good science ... writer) some of the foremost scientists in the world. ... > accompanying every thread in here on the part of the Evolutionists, ... creationism" than "an attempt to falsify the Theory of Evolution." ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Hard Sci-fi?
    ... Either you desire absolute ... it down with your nonsens philosophy. ... Science should have taught you that science itself began as philosophy ... scientists before drawing that conclusion. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)
Loading