Reg Prescott

All I can say, I'm afraid, is that your understanding of falsification in science is woefully impoverished. What a naive falsificationist (e.g. yourself) calls "falsifying evidence", another person -- the "normal scientist" -- is likely to call "puzzling evidence" or an "anomaly" or some similar locution. There are simply no precedents for the kind of thing you're suggesting two posts above ("the refusal of mainstream scientists to accept newly found experimental and/or observational evidence that falsifies the incumbent model" - you), i.e. that certain experiments are conducted, or certain observations are made, which are inimical to (cf. falsify) the overarching theory, and the community in question concludes, "That's it, boys. The paradigm is false. Let's go to the pub". This kind of thing just does not happen, as the history of science bears witness. Whatever else we can say about falsification, a major paradigm is never pronounced to be false -- and usually not until much later -- in the absence of an alternative to supplant it. If you know of any counterexamples, gimme a nudge.

This has been covered. From my sixth post on page 1: "Of course, questions are being asked in science all the time. Where I'd object is to the claim that the mainstream, i.e., the overarching theoretical framework, or paradigm, is subject to constant questioning or challenge." In the case of natural selection, say, that I cited as one of two examples in my most recent post, it is indeed the case that the degree to which natural selection plays a role in evolution remains a matter of debate. I can, once again for the benefit of the less attentive among us, sportingly concede that this kind of thing is "questioned all the time". It's what Kuhn refers to "puzzle solving", the bread and butter of "normal science", that is carried out within the context of a paradigm which is, by and large, not itself questioned. On the other hand, show me someone who questions the very validity of selection or mainstream evolutionary doctrine itself -- someone who questions the paradigm -- and I'll show you a person who has very likely been marginalized, ridiculed, and, in all probability, accused of not doing science at all. This has also been covered. See my entire first post. In fact, see the entire thread -- as well as its now catatonic spin-off.

@ Studiot In response to the above, I can only say my understanding of "mainstream", with respect to science, would mean something like that which is generally accepted. This would include, but not be exhausted by, major theoretical frameworks or paradigms, of the type I've alluded to in the earlier sections of the thread. (e.g. Newtonian mechanics in a past age, natural selection in this age, etc.). Whether or not my usage is isomorphic with that of SamCogar is something only SamCogar can answer. Where'd he go anyway? Edit: And before anyone pounces with another accusation of "begging the question", I see nothing inconsistent in the claim "such-and-such is generally accepted, yet questioned all the time nonetheless". In fact, this would be quite consonant with the image that scientists commonly project of themselves. This image, I'm arguing, is spurious.

A little more... It has recently been suggested that my appeal to Max Born's expertise runs afoul of the "fallacy of argument from authority" (see swansont's most recent post - previous page). Appeal to expertise is somehow illegitimate. I've noticed that this very site has its own panel of resident experts. If appeal to the authority of experts is indeed fallacious, as swansont asserts, what function do your own resident experts serve?

Ah, so we're back to the old "logical fallacy" game, are we? Forty years ago or so, when John Searle first published his celebrated (or notorious) "Chinese Room" argument demonstrating that computation is insufficient for cognition, i.e., if a machine thinks it won't be in virtue of performing computation alone, the howls of protest from the A.I. community were predictable and vociferous. The argument was wrong -- fallacious -- they screamed. It had to be wrong. After all, their own research program would be jeopardized if it were right. While everybody agreed the argument was specious, curiously enough though, the critics seemed unable to agree on precisely what was wrong with it. Recent posts assert that my arguments commit the fallacy of (i) begging the question, (ii) polysemy, (iii) equivocation, and (iv) appeal to authority. Well, did you evah! (i) has already been refuted. (ii) Perhaps SamCogar does not mean by "mainstream" what I, and presumably everyone else, means by the term, this complaint asserts. Well, it's possible. It's also possible that when SamCogar says "undergraduate" he has in mind "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves". In this kind of debate, though, we presume that our interlocutors are competent speakers of English who use words more or less the same way as every other competent speaker, and if a word is being used in a deviant, technical, or unorthodox manner, we expect this to be indicated. Otherwise the rules break down. (iii) Now we're told that a mixing of two uses of the verb "to question" leads to fallacy and the end of the world as we know it. Well, as with (ii) above, lacking direct access to other contributors' inner mental states and concepts, I have only my own concept of "question" to work with, which I take to be fairly standard. If it weren't, it's hard to see how we'd be communicating successfully at all. (iv) Were we to consult Max Born on poetry of the late Tang dynasty, say, his authority might indeed be suspect. I see nothing whatsoever fallacious, however, in appealing to an authority on matters that he is indeed authoritative about. Judicial courts call it an "expert witness". Does being an expert entail that he's right? Of course not, but neither can he simply be dismissed with a wave of the hand, and a "Buzz! Fallacy #37! Next!". Born is an expert and his testimony has to be taken seriously. Born's testimony constitutes only a small part of a case I've been building which includes theoretical and historical evidence, as well as expert opinion from various sources, amounting to good reasons for thinking that mainstream science is not "questioned all the time". Now, is the plan of attack really to go through the entire book of logical fallacies? Who knows, if you throw enough of them out there, some members less able to appraise these matters for themselves may even be persuaded.

There are several errors in your "logic" here. You distort what Born said -- in more ways than one! First of all, he did not -- contra your own misrepresentation -- say "science" simpliciter; what he said was "a scientific theory [that has become] firmly established and confirmed". Second of all, he did not say, as per own your distortion, that "[it] isn't questioned because it is dogma"; what he said was "it becomes dogma". Now, whether or not Born's assertion poses a threat to Phi for All's claim (see OP) that science is "questioned all the time" hinges on the meaning of the word dogma. If dogma connotes that which is constantly questioned, then Phi's claim needn't fear anything, from Max Born at least. I'm suggesting that on any standard usage of the term, dogma implies that which is, by and large, not to be questioned. If this connotation of the term is granted, and Max Born's claim is true, then it follows immediately that Phi's claim is false. Either way, there is no begging of the question. The execrable logic is your own.

The source is "Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance" (1949), p47 -- M. Born "[Even] if correct", then the claim that mainstream science is being questioned all the time is false, granting that dogma, almost by definition, refers to those doctrines that are not to be questioned.

Nobel prize-winning physicist, Max Born, adds his voice to the list of those who, like myself, do not think it is true that mainstream science is being "questioned all the time".

Is it held that (all) copper conducts electricity? How did science arrive at that conclusion if not by induction? Is it true that Semmelweis postulated the existence of "cadaveric material" or what we would call bacteria? This is an abductive inference. As for ontology: Are you suggesting that no scientist (we did say science, after all, not physics) holds that molecules exist? Or tectonic plates? Or neurons?

The distinction is between: (i) making a deductive prediction (in the case of deterministic theories) or inductive prediction (in the case of statistical theories). In both cases your ontology will not -- cannot -- increase. No new entities will be added to your ontology. And (ii) Bringing a hypothesis to the data. This would be an abductive inference. E.g. hypothezing the existence of unobservable bacteria, say, to explain the prevalence of pregnant mums getting sick. Our ontology, supposing the hypothesis turns out to be true, has now expanded by one type of entity. Science has nothing to do with ontology? C'mon now. Scientists routinely tell us what does, and what does not, exist.

But your ontology remains precisely the same as it was to begin with. Deduction is not an "ampliative" mode of inference. It cannot expand your ontology. Neither can induction, in the strict sense of the term.

Of course you were allowed. The existence of the eighth planet, however, was not derived from the theory, in conjunction with the usual auxiliaries and background assumptions, of course. The background assumption was that there were seven planets. An eighth was hypothesized. And hey presto!

Well, not quite sure where this will lead, but first consider: Premise 1: 2x=6 ---------------------------- Conclusion : x = 3 No new terms have appeared in the conclusion. We still have numbers, "x", and an identity symbol ("="). Our ontology remains precisely as it was before. Did you have something different in mind?

First of all, a request to the mods. Several of the last few posts have been largely irrelevant to the thread topic, indeed irrelevant to anything remotely related to science or the philosophy thereof. Now, as I made clear earlier, I'm by no means averse to a little meandering so long as the discourse remains civil and pertinent to this site's proclaimed intellectual aims. That said, subjects broached recently include my alleged idiocy and other personality failings (Strange, Studiot, and Beecee), as well as my putative corruption of the site's youth (Beecee). Socrates, eat your heart out! One can't help wondering what the consequences would have been if I had said of my detractors that which they said of me. The double standards which not only obtain here, but judging by the "votes", positively condoned, are quite deplorable. Might I suggest another thread split -- perhaps entitled "Reg is a Jerk" -- so that those so inclined may discuss my foibles till their hearts are content? Now, back to business... Swansont and I have agreed that naive falsificationism is hopelessly inadequate as a model -- whether descriptive or prescriptive -- for science. In his most recent post, Swansont asked (of naive falsificationism): "Then why bring it up?" Several reasons. Firstly, it's commonly invoked for illustrative purposes in introductory texts in the philosophy of science, not only for its intrinsic heuristic value -- a first (inaccurate) approximation to how science works, if you like -- and also in order to expose its failings. Secondly, inadequate though it may be, it is clearly believed and espoused by a great many people both within and without science. Surely we've all seen something like the following on forums like this one and elsewhere -- and I paraphrase : "General relativity (or name your own fave theory) has never once been shown to be at variance with observation/experiment. All it would take is one piece of contradictory evidence and the entire edifice would topple". A strawman, you say? Well, remember I mentioned a Richard Feynman video in my first post? Here it is... At 0:40 mins, Feynman asserts, "If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't make a difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn't make a difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is, if it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. That's all there is to it". Now, Feynman uses the word "law". I'd suggest, though, it would make little difference were we to substitute "law" with "theory" or "hypothesis". Feynman, as I said, might as well be reciting directly from an early Karl Popper text; this is an endorsement of naive falsificationism. And as we've agreed, naive falsificationism is simply not tenable as a model for what scientists actually do. With all due respect to the brilliant Prof Feynman, clearly that is not all there is to it. But that was 1964, you might say. No one still believes that! No one really believes that a mismatch between observation and theory/hypothesis entails a falsification thereof, do they? Well, a search for the word "falsified" on your site reveals (this is just a small sample): "Science looks for the best supported explanations, always. Ideas aren't "right" or "correct", they're either falsified or unfalsified, and the unfalsified ideas are constantly being attacked to see if they hold up under harsh scrutiny. These ideas MUST match what we observe in nature, as free from our human cognitive biases as possible." - Phi for All, "What is Faith?", page 18 "So if this is a testable prediction of your hypothesis then it is falsified. We don't see expansion between galaxies, even though there is a lower gravitational potential." - Strange, "An Observer's Local Clock", page 6 "As this is different from the measured value, your hypothesis/guess is falsified." - Strange, "Gravitation Constant or Not", page 1 "Again though it will take observational and experimental evidence to over throw GR and/or having it falsified" - Beecee, "When to use Special versus General Relativity?", page 2 "Special Relativity came later and was (largely) based on different evidence than that which falsified aether theory." - Strange, "Maths vs Belief", page 1 "The luminiferous aether theory was falsified by the Michelson Morley experiment because it was not Lorenz invariant." - Beecee, "Maths vs Belief", page 1 "Not only is there no evidence for it, but it is flat out falsified by the CMB." - Strange, "Religions influence on Science", page 1 "Some theories are falsified , but very few. Phlogiston is one of the few examples I can think of." - Strange, "Why is life after death really not possible?", page 2 My search yielded 37 pages containing the word "falsified". The selective sample above is taken only from the first four pages. Clearly, the naive falsificationist school of thought still holds sway in many quarters. Now, there are both historical and technical reasons for thinking falsificationism is something of a myth. In the former case, what we see time and time again when one paradigm replaces another is not that a so-called crucial experiment or a particular observation immediately reveals to all that such-and-such a theory is false. The widespread belief in such things, I would suggest, is due to those disturbingly common "Whig" histories of science; history written by the victors from the victors' perspective. Richard Feynman, to his credit, was quite aware of this phenomenon: Those who insist on crucial experiments and instant falsification must address the awkward question of why it is that proponents of the phlogiston theory and aether theories, for example, went to their graves unconvinced of their falsity. What was their problem? Too dense to see that falsification had occurred? Max Planck had this to say on the matter: Furthermore, as history makes clear, a major paradigm is never rejected (cf. falsified) until a replacement is available. There are no precedents, that I'm aware of anyway, where scientists performed such-and-such an experiment, or made such-and-such an observation, only to conclude, "Dang! Our overarching theoretical framework has been falsified. Looks like we're out of a theory, boys". Approaching the issue from the technical side, meanwhile, those familiar with the work of Pierre Duhem, later built upon by W. V. O. Quine, will be aware that scientific statements/ hypotheses/theories/laws are never tested in isolation. What is tested, instead, is more like a holistic package containing the hypothesis/theory supposedly under test, as well as an indefinite number of auxiliary hypotheses and background assumptions. When observation/experiment fails to comport with theory, all that can be said logically is "something is wrong somewhere" (in the package). Logic alone cannot tell the scientist how to distribute praise and blame throughout the package. (see the "Duhem/Quine thesis" for details). There is, therefore, no such thing as falsification in empirical science in any logical sense at least.

You're quite right that " "naive falsification" would have us dropping every theory with a single anomalous result". As a model for science, whether descriptive or prescriptive, it's clearly hopelessly inadequate. It's not what scientists do, and as you say yourself, it certainly does not appear to be a very sensible precept to guide inquiry. What you're not right about is my "pushing" it. I'm not pushing anything. As I tried to make clear earlier, what interests me is not what scientists ought to do, but what they do do. If you disagree, please point me to where I have endorsed a program of naive falsificationism. Seems to me the one attacking a strawman is yourself.