Underdetermination in Science

[Zosimus]

18 minutes ago, Strange said:

That is, not surprisingly, a misrepresentation of how science works.

Science uses the best theory (or theories) available. That may be flawed but it will be used (perhaps with caveats) be used until a better theory is found. 

Even Newton was unhappy with his theory of gravitation because it couldn't say why the force existed. GR answers that question but raises others. 

No, Newton's law of universal gravitation predicts that gravity somehow exerts a force on an object, accelerating it by changing its vector. GR says that no such force exists, rather the object is moving in a straight line through curved multi-dimensional space. Newton's law does not explain why the force is produced. Similarly, GR does not indicate why mass causes space to be curved.

I also couldn't help but note that you called Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation a theory. This is disconcerting to say the least. One would think that you would know the difference between a law and a theory.

18 minutes ago, Strange said:

In some cases yes. But you say that as if it is a bad thing rather than the strength that allows science to progress (But then I guess (*) you don't think science does make any progress). 

Yes, I realize that every time a new scientific fad comes out, you think it's progress. However, you have provided no reason to believe that every change is for the better. Perhaps your theory is that a man, realizing he is on the wrong bus, gets off and gets on another. Therefore, "progress" has been made because the man is no longer on a specific wrong bus. You have not indicated how we could/should know that the new bus is the right one.

18 minutes ago, Strange said:

However many theories don't get replaced. 

So your claim is that because the theory has yet to be replaced, it doesn't get replaced?

2 minutes ago, swansont said:

Unfortunately we are talking about science and not logic. That's not how it is approached in science, since such a simplistic approach would leave us with zero theories which are correct.

Exactly. Science has zero known true theories. I'm glad we agree.

2 minutes ago, swansont said:

That might be appealing from a bookkeeping aspect, since there would be no entries of which one must keep track, but hardly useful.

Ah, but you went a step further. You said "new theories can constantly be constructed that will match the data" (emphasis added) not just new graphs, and that's what I am objecting to. 

If you want to make a plot of x vs t for an object in freefall (and where air resistance can be neglected), yes, you can fit an infinite number of curves to it. But why on earth would you want to do that?

As this is not the scientific approach, what does that have to do with science? (you are, in effect, attacking a caricature of science. A straw man argument. Several of them, in fact, in the course of this thread))

Ahh, but this is exactly the simplistic caricature of science that we are exposed to in this forum. Never are we told, "Experiment X was done, getting a p-value of 0.043 so this seems reasonably promising and we are going to look into it further by first trying to replicate the experiment and then by conducting similar experiments trying to figure out exactly what all of this means."

Instead we get cheerleaders. We are told that science is fantastic, but philosophy is nonsense. We are told that science is ever approaching the truth and that we should accept the latest scientific fads without critical thought. We are told that even when science is wrong, it quickly changes and that all change is improvement. We are told that just because science was wrong in the past does not mean that science could be wrong in the future — far from it.

Give me a break. I'll pass on the Kool-Aid.

[Strange]

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

I tried to go back to edit the original post to put something like: Underdetermination is a serious and underestimated problem for science in general and scientific realism in particular.

Perhaps you could say what these problems are, because it seems to be working reasonably well.

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

An assumption is any unstated premise. Since your argument did not contain the sentence "Some technology is based on science" you assumed that it was, but didn't explicitly say so.

We don't want to get sidetracked into linguistics but (in English) if there is no quantifier, then the usual implication is that it refers to some, not all. But, whatever. Not really relevant. 

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

It should be obvious from the context that I do not agree that science is a necessary condition for having a computer. I am more inclined to think that I have this computer because of six-sigma quality controls, double-entry bookkeeping, or capital investment. Now, perhaps the computer wouldn't be as advanced as it is now. Maybe my computer would run on vacuum tubes rather than MOSFETs. Who knows?

You think that field-effect transistors, flash memories and, in fact, semiconductors themselves are not based on science? Perhaps they were created by luck or by invoking the god of thunder?

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

Evidence cannot support anything because of the problem of underdetermination.

You must live in a very strange world.

No point looking at the weather forecast because it is no better than guesswork. Tomorrow could be wet, dry, hot, cold, snow or heatwave. Yesterdays or last years weather gives us no clue as to what might happen.

No point going to the doctor if you are ill, because he will just guess. Just because other people have had the same symptoms doesn't mean that you have the same disease. And even if you do let him prescribe something, no point taking the medicine because it could make you better or kill you; how could we ever know.

And what do you eat? There is all this stuff in the shop labelled "food". Some people eat it and they seem to be OK. But that doesn't mean anything. 

And, I thought I was making up ridiculous scenarios but then you say:

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

You do not stop to calculate the likelihood of rain. You just always carry an umbrella with you

Oh well. And sunscreen, in case it is exceedingly sunny (but I guess you can always use you umbrella as a parasol). 

And diving gear in case of a flash flood.

Do you tow a small trailer with equipment for any possible weather and natural disaster? 

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

If our theory is true, then it will fit the data.

Our theory fits the data.

Therefore, it must be true. 

Theories are not true or false. Maybe this basic misunderstanding is where you have gone wrong with your attempt to analyse science.

 

52 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

No, Newton's law of universal gravitation predicts that gravity somehow exerts a force on an object, accelerating it by changing its vector. GR says that no such force exists, rather the object is moving in a straight line through curved multi-dimensional space. Newton's law does not explain why the force is produced. Similarly, GR does not indicate why mass causes space to be curved.

This is a very good point: we have two completely different explanations. We don't say that one is true and one is false. That is not how science works.

(And GR does explain where the force arises from; it is a pseudo-force which arises from analysing things in a particular frame of reference. Rather as people will tell you that there is no such thing as centripetal force, but of course there is in the rotating frame of reference).

52 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

However, you have provided no reason to believe that every change is for the better.

A theory is considered "better" if it either explains things that the the previous one couldn't or provides more accurate results. (Or, because you are being pedantic about logic, possibly both.)

Edit: Or because the new theory has fewer free variables or doesn't invoke unnecessary entities (I assume you have heard of Occam's Razor). For example, there is an alternative to Special Relativity (SR) called Lorentz Ether Theory (LET). Now LET is indistinguishable from SR: it uses the same mathematics and produces exactly the same results. But it uses an undetectable "ether" as the mechanism to explain why theses things happen. (The theory itself makes this ether undetectable, by definition.) Most people prefer SR to LET because it doesn't use an undetectable mechanism that makes no difference to anything. Clearly some people (Lorentz, as a minimum) prefer LET because they want to have a mechanical explanation. 

)I'm not sure that every change is always "better".)

52 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

So your claim is that because the theory has yet to be replaced, it doesn't get replaced?

We don't know if it will be or not.

52 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

Ahh, but this is exactly the simplistic caricature of science that we are exposed to in this forum. Never are we told, "Experiment X was done, getting a p-value of 0.043 so this seems reasonably promising and we are going to look into it further by first trying to replicate the experiment and then by conducting similar experiments trying to figure out exactly what all of this means."

This is a discussion forum. Sometimes discussion will refer to the published work which does include those sort of details. Otherwise the caveats associated with sic are assumed. If every sentence X had to be replaced with "According to the current best evidence it appears possible that X but this requires further work and is subject to change in future" I think conversations would get quite cumbersome.

52 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

We are told that science is fantastic

It is. So is rap music. But perhaps you prefer religion and opera. It takes all sorts.

52 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

We are told that science is ever approaching the truth and that we should accept the latest scientific fads without critical thought. We are told that just because science was wrong in the past does not mean that science could be wrong in the future

Not by scientists. This is a straw man.

 

As an aside, as you are so opposed to science, why join a science forum? 

Edited November 19, 2018 by Strange
Occam's razor

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

 Exactly. Science has zero known true theories. I'm glad we agree.

Great. Then you can go back to whatever it is you do, and let the scientists do their work. From what I can tell, you can pontificate about all of this without bringing science into it at all. Just put it in some fantasy setting, and you can make stuff up all you want. Narniamatics. 

Meanwhile, science has theories. Since science deals with how the real world behaves, and that's a messy proposition, theories will be imperfect. We are constrained by having to make theories agree with nature. 

Quote

Ahh, but this is exactly the simplistic caricature of science that we are exposed to in this forum. Never are we told, "Experiment X was done, getting a p-value of 0.043 so this seems reasonably promising and we are going to look into it further by first trying to replicate the experiment and then by conducting similar experiments trying to figure out exactly what all of this means."

But this is, in effect, what happens. Are you under the impression that scientific models are accepted after a single experimental result? That nobody follows up on them, either directly or indirectly?

Quote

Instead we get cheerleaders. We are told that science is fantastic, but philosophy is nonsense.

I will tell you what I have told others. Philosophers have insisted that I need to incorporate more philosophy in my science, but they have yet to describe to me a philosophy that helps me align a laser into an optical fiber.

If philosophy helps someone do better physics, that's great. But the philosophy advocates that visit here have a tendency to oversell their product, and at the same time show a profound misunderstanding of science. If you don't want people to think philosophy is nonsense, stop parading the nonsense in front of them.

 

Quote

We are told that science is ever approaching the truth and that we should accept the latest scientific fads without critical thought.

I think the only person participating in this discussion who has claimed anything like this is in the philosopher camp, not the scientific one.

Quote

We are told that even when science is wrong, it quickly changes and that all change is improvement. We are told that just because science was wrong in the past does not mean that science could be wrong in the future — far from it.

Give me a break. I'll pass on the Kool-Aid.

How expensive is straw these days?

[studiot]

2 hours ago, Zosimus said:

Quote

Now how about a sensible response to my request for OP guidance?

I apologise for my depracatory remarks directed at your opening paragraph showing a plot and some mathematical explanation.

But what do you expect when you offer fundamentally incorrect mathematics to a bunch of mathematicians as the basis for a thread?

There was no math. It was an illustration. If you'd like a better illustration, I can easily come up with one.

As a child, I was often given the task of completing a series of numbers. For example, we would see:

1, 2, 3... ___   What comes next? Well, the credited response is 4. If you put 10 or 2 you don't get credit. Yet, is it impossible that the next number is 10? Hardly. We could easily be working in base-4 counting. Another possibility is 2 (the largest prime factor of n). The point is that you have been told and trained since a child to believe that the data set indicates one answer. If you refuse to believe this, you are punished. If you believe it, you are rewarded. Yet, simple carrot-and-stick games do not make a false statement true. There are always alternate explanations for any data set.

 

I was really disappointed in this casual dismisssal of someone trying to actually discuss your topic, since you claim you want to have such a discussion.

Particular seeing the substantial effort you put into squabbling with others over off topic material in preference.

 

I took the bother of looking up the meaning of Undetermination - A new one to me.

I understand and sympathise with the idea but I find the pudding over egged.
I have a (paradoxically self contradictory)  notion of my own that all embracing propositions are, by nature, self contradictory.
 

Since you started with a mathematical argument, I was offering to help you get it right.
Your reply was to deny your original statement.

Your example is a positive one.

In order to falsify the Stanford meaning of Undetermination I think it is easiest to chose a negative example,

For example the proposition "There are no native flourine breathers on Pluto"

For the very simple reason that, if there is any flourine on Pluto, there is not enough to breath.

[StringJunky]

 “We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” - Heisenberg.

[Zosimus]

2 hours ago, Strange said:

Perhaps you could say what these problems are, because it seems to be working reasonably well.

Why don't we start with the point that most published research findings are false.

2 hours ago, Strange said:

We don't want to get sidetracked into linguistics but (in English) if there is no quantifier, then the usual implication is that it refers to some, not all. But, whatever. Not really relevant. 

You think that field-effect transistors, flash memories and, in fact, semiconductors themselves are not based on science? Perhaps they were created by luck or by invoking the god of thunder?

A simple fact check shows that MOSFETs were invented in 1925 whereas our current version of science was invented in 1933. Of course, you might object and say that Bipolar Junction Transistors were invented in 1948 or you might object and say that just because we used a different form of science pre-1933 doesn't mean it wasn't still science. Still, the Antikythera mechanism was produced by the Greeks -- more than a millennium prior to the "Scientific Revolution."

2 hours ago, Strange said:

You must live in a very strange world.

No point looking at the weather forecast because it is no better than guesswork. Tomorrow could be wet, dry, hot, cold, snow or heatwave. Yesterdays or last years weather gives us no clue as to what might happen.

Not really. Like others, I walk into a 7-11 and see a bunch of pills all of which purport to alleviate problem X. Rather than trying to figure out which one is best, I simply buy the cheapest. Why is that surprising?

2 hours ago, Strange said:

No point going to the doctor if you are ill, because he will just guess. Just because other people have had the same symptoms doesn't mean that you have the same disease. And even if you do let him prescribe something, no point taking the medicine because it could make you better or kill you; how could we ever know.

Well, if you believe in science, then surely you must believe that doctors are the 3rd leading cause of death in the United States. I haven't been to a doctor in more than two decades.

2 hours ago, Strange said:

And what do you eat? There is all this stuff in the shop labelled "food". Some people eat it and they seem to be OK. But that doesn't mean anything. 

It may surprise you to learn this, but I do as most people do. When I feel hungry, I eat whatever my body wants to eat. Sometimes it wants pizza. Sometimes it wants chocolate. When my body wants liquid, I give it whatever liquid it craves. When my body wants sex, I seek out my wife. Now, I don't claim that any of these things are logically justified. Do you think that a hungry baby thinks, "Well, I have no past experience to rely on, so I am not empirically justified in the belief that mommy's breast milk will sustain me. Perhaps I should engage in a scientific experiment with laboratory rats." Of course not. Don't be silly.

2 hours ago, Strange said:

And, I thought I was making up ridiculous scenarios but then you say:

Oh well. And sunscreen, in case it is exceedingly sunny (but I guess you can always use you umbrella as a parasol). 

I don't use sunscreen. I don't believe in it.

2 hours ago, Strange said:

Theories are not true or false. Maybe this basic misunderstanding is where you have gone wrong with your attempt to analyse science.

All meaningful statements are either true or false. This is called the law of the excluded middle.

2 hours ago, Strange said:

This is a very good point: we have two completely different explanations. We don't say that one is true and one is false. That is not how science works.

(And GR does explain where the force arises from; it is a pseudo-force which arises from analysing things in a particular frame of reference. Rather as people will tell you that there is no such thing as centripetal force, but of course there is in the rotating frame of reference).

You must mean centrifugal force. Of course there is centripetal acceleration otherwise the object would not continue to move in a circle.

2 hours ago, Strange said:

A theory is considered "better" if it either explains things that the the previous one couldn't or provides more accurate results. (Or, because you are being pedantic about logic, possibly both.)

If that's true, why not simply believe that everything is in your head or that everything is as it is because that's what God wants? After all, these theories explain everything. Karl Popper, on the other hand, would claim that a theory that forbids the most is best because it has superior empirical content.

2 hours ago, Strange said:

Edit: Or because the new theory has fewer free variables or doesn't invoke unnecessary entities (I assume you have heard of Occam's Razor). For example, there is an alternative to Special Relativity (SR) called Lorentz Ether Theory (LET). Now LET is indistinguishable from SR: it uses the same mathematics and produces exactly the same results. But it uses an undetectable "ether" as the mechanism to explain why theses things happen. (The theory itself makes this ether undetectable, by definition.) Most people prefer SR to LET because it doesn't use an undetectable mechanism that makes no difference to anything. Clearly some people (Lorentz, as a minimum) prefer LET because they want to have a mechanical explanation. 

Of course I have heard of Occam's razor. I have just never understood while a razor attributed to William of Ockham is not called Ockham's razor. I also point out (as others have) that it is not so simple as to determine which theory is simpler.

2 hours ago, Strange said:

)I'm not sure that every change is always "better".)

We don't know if it will be or not.

This is a discussion forum. Sometimes discussion will refer to the published work which does include those sort of details. Otherwise the caveats associated with sic are assumed. If every sentence X had to be replaced with "According to the current best evidence it appears possible that X but this requires further work and is subject to change in future" I think conversations would get quite cumbersome.

It is. So is rap music. But perhaps you prefer religion and opera. It takes all sorts.

Not by scientists. This is a straw man.

 

As an aside, as you are so opposed to science, why join a science forum? 

I don't consider it a science forum. I consider it a philosophy forum that happens to reside on a scientific website.

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Great. Then you can go back to whatever it is you do, and let the scientists do their work. From what I can tell, you can pontificate about all of this without bringing science into it at all. Just put it in some fantasy setting, and you can make stuff up all you want. Narniamatics. 

I teach math and critical reasoning to MBA-hopefuls who want to pass the GMAT test.

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Meanwhile, science has theories. Since science deals with how the real world behaves, and that's a messy proposition, theories will be imperfect. We are constrained by having to make theories agree with nature. 

But this is, in effect, what happens. Are you under the impression that scientific models are accepted after a single experimental result? That nobody follows up on them, either directly or indirectly?

I will tell you what I have told others. Philosophers have insisted that I need to incorporate more philosophy in my science, but they have yet to describe to me a philosophy that helps me align a laser into an optical fiber.

Yes, and I have yet to see how a laser can put a nail into a wall. Well, I guess a laser is useless then. [/sarcasm]

I would simply be happier if your average scientific researcher understood basic mathematical concepts. That would be nice.

[swansont]

35 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

 Yes, and I have yet to see how a laser can put a nail into a wall. Well, I guess a laser is useless then. [/sarcasm]

I would simply be happier if your average scientific researcher understood basic mathematical concepts. That would be nice.

What does either statement have to do with anything we're discussing?

[Phi for All]

!

Moderator Note

Hijack about the truth of theories (for which Reg already had a thread) and responding posts have been split to the Trash. The topic here is the validity of undetermination in science.

 

[Strange]

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

Why don't we start with the point that most published research findings are false.

Are they? 

And how do you know this?

And what do you mean by "false"?

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

A simple fact check shows that MOSFETs were invented in 1925 whereas our current version of science was invented in 1933. Of course, you might object and say that Bipolar Junction Transistors were invented in 1948 or you might object and say that just because we used a different form of science pre-1933 doesn't mean it wasn't still science.

Hardly relevant. The fact is that quantum theory (and various other aspects of material science and chemistry) is used in the design of semiconducting materials and the devices constructed from them. 

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

If that's true, why not simply believe that everything is in your head or that everything is as it is because that's what God wants? After all, these theories explain everything.

How would you, for example, calculate the altitude of a geostationary satellite based on "everything is as it is because that's what God wants"?

So that doesn't seem to be a theory of anything (ignoring the fact that there is no reason to think that gods exist).

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

Of course I have heard of Occam's razor. I have just never understood while a razor attributed to William of Ockham is not called Ockham's razor.

It is.

(And, as you are so fond of nitpicking little errors, I assume you mean "why")

 

 

Edited November 19, 2018 by Strange
Removed bit referring to "truth"

[swansont]

3 hours ago, Zosimus said:

Why don't we start with the point that most published research findings are false.

Is this on point for this thread? I mean, it's an interesting phenomenon, and not really unexpected, but I am not seeing the relevance to underdetermination.

3 hours ago, Zosimus said:

I don't use sunscreen. I don't believe in it.

There's a bit to unpack there. But, again, I'm not seeing the relevance.

  

[beecee]

8 hours ago, Zosimus said:

Look — the topic is underdetermination in science. You have made one giant post, and you haven't talked about the topic at hand even once.

I was answering some of the off topic remarks, misunderstandings, philosophical ramblings and rhetoric by yourself.

Quote

You're going to get the topic off into an area that it's not supposed to be in, and then some self-righteous mod is going to come in and close the thread. Why do you want to screw this up for me? I'm interested in what people have to say. Since you're not interested in philosophy, go somewhere else and let people who are interested in it talk about it. As for why I have a computer and some guy in Venezuela doesn't, I'll tell you why — capitalism.

Oh for goodness sake! What has the fact that you having a computer and someone else not having a computer, have anything to do with science being responsible for the computer. Is this more obtuseness?

Quote

Fundamentally, this usually boils down to the argument from ignorance logical fallacy. People will say: You don't believe in theory X? Well, what's your theory then? Because if you don't have another theory, then you have to believe in my theory. .

How many times do you chose to ignore the fact of what science is and how under the auspices of the scientific method, it will always advance? How many times does it need to be explained to you how and why that puts science and the scientific method as superior to anything we have. How many times does it need to be explained to you that science is a practical endeavour?

Quote

The word "underdetermination" did not occur in your post anywhere. You are off topic.

I don't believe I am. I am simply pointing out how you and another, are making silly philosophical statements, that can never be verified, and in the main [as per a couple of my links] and are actually useless in practical science today.

What you term as undetermination is nothing more then science being able to change as more and more and further observations are made and in doing so, advancing mankind. 

[studiot]

Quote

Rochester

underdetermination

Underdetermination is a thesis explaining that for any scientifically based theory there will always be at least one rival theory that is also supported by the evidence given, and that that theory can also be logically maintained in the face of any new evidence.

The thinking here began with Pierre Duhem who said, regarding an experiment which provided evidence contrary to a prior belief, "The only thing the experiment teaches us is that among the propositions used to predict the phenomenon and to establish whether it would be produced, there is at least one error; but where this error lies is just what it does not tell us." (Schick, pp 54)

Duhem's view was a step towards fallibilism, the view that any natural observation could be wrong. Quine would take this movement a step further in what he called underdetermination. By this he meant that our lack of certainty about our prior knowledge would allow us to accept multiple theories explaning our current condition.

This is an interpretation of Quine's Nonuniqueness thesis: For any theory, T, and any given body of evidence supporting T, there is at least one rival (i.e., contrary) to T that is as well supported as T.

This is a result of our inability to completely understand or gain access to the whole set of empirical evidence for any one particular situation or system, and therefore our acceptance that new evidence could be made available at any time. This thesis maintains that since there is no method for selecting between our two (or more) valid solutions, the validity of our conclusion is always in question.

 

I think this explanation of undeterminism is pretty self explanatory.

I also think it sometimes holds true.

But I take issue that it is always true.

 

So what is the relationship of this to Science?

Well it suggests there is usually more than one answer / method of calculation / consideration etic.

Do the philosophers really think scientists don't know this, live with it everyday, and have developed sophisticated techniques for handling the situation?

Why do they think more than one method of solving quadratic (and other simple) equations is taught in elementary school?

 

What more is there to say on the subject?

[beecee]

10 hours ago, studiot said:

Hey, Man I was referring to your opening post. (as non soapboxing)

No probs....I may have got my wires crossed. 

 

[swansont]

6 minutes ago, studiot said:

 

I think this explanation of undeterminism is pretty self explanatory.

I also think it sometimes holds true.

But I take issue that it is always true.

Same here.

it is interesting to note that this summary says "at least one rival theory", and if one takes Zosimus's suggestion and looks this up in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy it says that (emphasis added) "the evidence available to us at a given time may be insufficient to determine what beliefs we should hold in response to it." I note that both of these statements fall far short of Zosimus's original assertion that there are an infinite number of alternate theories

6 minutes ago, studiot said:

 

So what is the relationship of this to Science?

Well it suggests there is usually more than one answer / method of calculation / consideration etic.

Do the philosophers really think scientists don't know this, live with it everyday, and have developed sophisticated techniques for handling the situation?

Indeed. Rival proposals exist for a number of theories in science. Many more have been proposed and discarded. Scientists choose experiment details to try and fend off critique that alternate explanations could account for the results.

[Strange]

38 minutes ago, swansont said:

I note that both of these statements fall far short of Zosimus's original assertion that there are an infinite number of alternate theories

So, in the same way that we have pseudoscience where people start with a belief and then manipulate evidence and theory to fit, this could perhaps be defined as pseudo-philosophy.

[Reg Prescott]

I'd just like to say that I'm a new man and that I agree with everything and anything the moderators say, even those parts which are patently ludicrous, false, and self-contradictory.

Because when I don't, nasty things tend to happen to me.

Why, just this morning I woke up to another shiny red warning for thread hijacking and my most recent response to moderator absurdities consigned to the trash can.

Yes, folks, I'll have inscribed on my new coat of arms "Science is all about critical thought and freedom of expression. And if you disagree we'll cut your head off".

Tally ho, chaps! Let's begin by cutting Zosimus's head off.

Edited November 19, 2018 by Reg Prescott

[Phi for All]

4 minutes ago, Reg Prescott said:

Why, just this morning I just woke up to another shiny red warning for thread hijacking and my most recent response to moderator absurdities consigned to the trash can.

!

Moderator Note

Warning point issued for thread hijacking. Sorry you can't abide by the rules thousands of others are capable of following.

 

[Zosimus]

4 hours ago, Strange said:

Are they? 

And how do you know this?

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124

4 hours ago, Strange said:

And what do you mean by "false"?

 

4 hours ago, Strange said:

Hardly relevant. The fact is that quantum theory (and various other aspects of material science and chemistry) is used in the design of semiconducting materials and the devices constructed from them. 

How would you, for example, calculate the altitude of a geostationary satellite based on "everything is as it is because that's what God wants"?

So that doesn't seem to be a theory of anything (ignoring the fact that there is no reason to think that gods exist).

It is.

(And, as you are so fond of nitpicking little errors, I assume you mean "why")

 

 

I would be delighted to answer your posts, but the moderator police are here keeping us on the topic of underdetermination in science. Feel free to respond to me in private or in another thread.

 

Underdetermination is not one thing. It is many things. For example, let's talk about holistic underdetermination in science. Let us imagine that you and I are doing an experiment to measure the speed of light. We have all of our equipment set up and we successfully measure the speed of light at about 93,000 miles per second — substantially less than the official number. We stare at each other blankly for a moment, and then start checking our equipment. After hours of going over everything, we cannot find anything wrong. We re-run the experiment and come up with the spot on number we expect.

What do we conclude? Well, we can conclude:

 

1) The speed of light was slower at the moment we did the experiment.

2) Even though our equipment seemed to be working fine, it wasn't working fine at the moment of the test.

3) One of us misdid the calculations that led us to the 93,000 miles per second number.

 

Another way of putting this is to say that the data at hand do not give us an indication of what belief we should properly hold. This is holistic underdetermination.

[beecee]

13 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

Another way of putting this is to say that the data at hand do not give us an indication of what belief we should properly hold. This is holistic underdetermination.

Another way of putting this is that the data available or at hand, [including observational data] is the best judge/estimation at that time and consequently must be the basis for a relevant theory/model explaining such data. Of course the scientific method entails that the theory/model relevant, is continually being tested, and retested and retested to verify/test those findings and eliminate any potential error. 

Edited November 19, 2018 by beecee

[Zosimus]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Same here.

it is interesting to note that this summary says "at least one rival theory", and if one takes Zosimus's suggestion and looks this up in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy it says that (emphasis added) "the evidence available to us at a given time may be insufficient to determine what beliefs we should hold in response to it." I note that both of these statements fall far short of Zosimus's original assertion that there are an infinite number of alternate theories

Indeed. Rival proposals exist for a number of theories in science. Many more have been proposed and discarded. Scientists choose experiment details to try and fend off critique that alternate explanations could account for the results.

You are ignoring the problem of unconceived alternatives. Simply because you cannot come up with an infinite number of alternatives does not mean that there are not an infinite number that simply have not been thought up yet.

[beecee]

55 minutes ago, Reg Prescott said:

Yes, folks, I'll have inscribed on my new coat of arms "Science is all about critical thought and freedom of expression. And if you disagree we'll cut your head off".

Tally ho, chaps! Let's begin by cutting Zosimus's head off.

No one's head is being cut off. This though is primarily a science forum, and any claim/thought needs to be scrutinised and put to the test, continually. Your philosophy of undeterministic and the obvious inferences made, has failed that test.

[Zosimus]

1 hour ago, Strange said:

So, in the same way that we have pseudoscience where people start with a belief and then manipulate evidence and theory to fit, this could perhaps be defined as pseudo-philosophy.

 

Time index 2:42

"No matter how many data points you add, there will still be an infinite number of possible lines or theories that can be drawn through them."

[beecee]

46 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

 

 

Of course they are! That is common everyday observation, pseudo-philosophy not withstanding..The undetermination philosophy of science, as projected by Zosimus, is again hairy fairy philosophical rhetoric, and is neither all inclusive nor all exclusive. It in many cases is irrelevant to the real world, as are many other philosophical concepts. [see my previous links] 

The obvious continued philosphy being projected by Reg and Zosimus, are impractical thoughts in many cases. I found the following interesting, although not in entire agreement with......

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569498/

The Medawar Lecture 2004 The truth about science:

 

ABSTRACT

The attitudes of scientists towards the philosophy of science is mixed and includes considerable indifference and some hostility. This may be due in part to unrealistic expectation and to misunderstanding. Philosophy is unlikely directly to improve scientific practices, but scientists may find the attempt to explain how science works and what it achieves of considerable interest nevertheless. The present state of the philosophy of science is illustrated by recent work on the ‘truth hypothesis’, according to which, science is generating increasingly accurate representations of a mind-independent and largely unobservable world. According to Karl Popper, although truth is the aim of science, it is impossible to justify the truth hypothesis. According to Thomas Kuhn, the truth hypothesis is false, because scientists can only describe a world that is partially constituted by their own theories and hence not mind-independent. The failure of past scientific theories has been used to argue against the truth hypothesis; the success of the best current theories has been used to argue for it. Neither argument is sound.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

If this "Underdetermination in Science" is valid absolutely, and if any of the other philosophical points raised by Reg or Zosimus are valid, it would mean that science and the scientific method is nonsense, and in reality should be scrapped. So I ask then, what would my two friends substitute in its place....preferable something that is going to do and benefit mankind at least as much as science most certainly has.

There is no substitution and nor should there be. What this "undetermination" is, is unrealistic at best and does not apply as a blanket statement with regards to science, never has and never will. 

 

Edited November 20, 2018 by beecee

[Rob McEachern]

10 hours ago, swansont said:

Are you under the impression that scientific models are accepted after a single experimental result?

Not anymore. In twenty-first century physics, they have become accepted without ANY experimental evidence:

"There is no more experimental evidence for some of the theories described in this book than there is for astrology, but we believe them because they are consistent with theories that have survived testing."  Stephan Hawking, "The Universe in a Nutshell", Bantam Books, 2001, pp 103-104.

“Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades… The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity… Worse, these "too good to not be true" theories are actually untestable…”  https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Math-Beauty-Physics-Astray/dp/0465094252

 

[beecee]

2 hours ago, Zosimus said:

You are ignoring the problem of unconceived alternatives. Simply because you cannot come up with an infinite number of alternatives does not mean that there are not an infinite number that simply have not been thought up yet.

That's so absurd.

23 minutes ago, Rob McEachern said:

Not anymore. In twenty-first century physics, they have become accepted without ANY experimental evidence:

What hypotheticals have been accepted as theories without experimental evidence?

Quote

"There is no more experimental evidence for some of the theories described in this book than there is for astrology, but we believe them because they are consistent with theories that have survived testing."  Stephan Hawking, "The Universe in a Nutshell", Bantam Books, 2001, pp 103-104.

Which one's are these? I believe we should be able to read it in context with the whole subject...you know, taking things out of context and all that.

 

Quote

“Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades… The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity… Worse, these "too good to not be true" theories are actually untestable…”  https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Math-Beauty-Physics-Astray/dp/0465094252

Gravitational waves off the top of my head. The "too good not to be true" aspect probably applies to string and/or its derivitives. Yep, I have heard similar, but once again, the majority of physicists are well aware that it has not as yet been validated via observation, hence why we are still searching for a QGT that can be validated. 

I see nothing wrong in any individual believing a hypothetical is beautiful and as such probably has some validity. I don't accept that they automatically claim them as legit theories.  

Edited November 20, 2018 by beecee