Is providing data to creationists a waste of time?

[A Vestigial Mote]

When you realize how lamely you play and how you simply cannot see that your queen is exposed to capture, even though she is right in front of your eyes, you develop a certain level of humility that will benefit you for the rest of your life.

Do you claim to have developed this level of humility yourself? From what I have seen of your attitude and the way you go about sharing your ruminations, you should probably go play A LOT more chess.

 

[Zosimus]

By the definition in that article, then, the 'theory' of general relativity should be the 'law' of general relativity. it is a mathematical description of how things work.

No, it's more than that. It's also a claim that gravity occurs because space is curved. Newton, on the other hand, never attempted to explain why gravity occurred.

And the point is that the distinction between 'law' and 'theory' is a false one. Newton's 'law' of gravity was found to be wrong in detail and was replaced by a better description. That better description is called the 'Theory of general relativity'. But, the new description is also mathematical in nature. It is general and allows for detailed predictions of what will happen.

Yes, I know you cum in your pants at the name of Einstein, but in reality his theory is not all you have it cracked up to be. Yes, it works very well at the scale of the solar system, but it cannot explain gravitational interactions between tiny particles nor can it explain the universe in general (see Problems of gravity | plus.maths.org ). What you need is a quantum theory of gravity.

This is an incorrect description. What we now know is that light is BOTH a wave and a particle. But it is neither a *classical* wave nor a *classical* particle.

No, you know nothing of the sort. You have a theory, but it's just a theory.

Which is why predictions should be made *before* the data is collected.

Obviously predictions were made before data were collected, but that doesn't stop researchers from saying:

Combined with previous results, our findings indicate that the peacock’s train (1) is not currently the universal target of female choice, (2) shows small variance among males across populations, (3) does not appear to reliably reflect male condition and (4) is perhaps ancestral and
static rather than recently derived.

Of course, no one suggested that Darwin might have been wrong. That would have been blasphemy... almost like suggesting that recycling is garbage.

Yes. But there are two citeria to be used in this situation: 1. Testability. and 2. Simplicity. We consider any two explanations that give the same predicted observations as being equivalent. And, while philosophers like to go round and round about the iea of 'grue', it turns out that isn't at all how scientists actually work. Again, you miss the logic involved completely.

I am pleased to see that you have mentioned grue. I thought you were completely ignorant, but it seems that you do have some exposure to the philosophical problems facing science. You don't seem to understand the seriousness of the problem nor do you seem to understand the point of the grue metaphor. The author was not trying to argue that grue was as good of a color as green. He was just asking why we thought so and how we could systematize it.

For example, if you have a bus and there are three people on the bus, all of whom are headed towards Chicago then a new person who gets on the bus will also be headed towards Chicago. This is a good induction. However, if you have a bus and there are three people on the bus all of whom were born in February that doesn't imply that the next person who gets on the bus will also be born in February.

The question, then, is what separates a "good" induction from a "bad" one? Your answer seems to be "scientists don't actually work that way." However, that's not an answer.

I said it has more justification than your philosophical position. You switched the goalpost.

No, my philosophical position is rationalism. Truth an be known a priori. I can simply stop and think about something and come up with truths. Your philosophical position is empiricism. You think that truth can only be gained through sensory data. Rationalism invented math and set theory. As far as I'm aware, there are no scientific discoveries that don't use one or both of these concepts. So, basically, my philosophical position makes your philosophical position wet its pants.

And they probably are wrong *in detail*. But they still work to a certain level of precision. And that makes them useful. Furthermore, the level of precision keeps getting better. While Newton's ideas worked to a certain level of accuracy, Einstein's work to a much higher level of accuracy. Even if they are wrong, they still work to that level of accuracy in those domains where they have been tested.

All right, let's segue from this crap into the point at hand. Einstein's theories are good to 8 or 9 digits. How many digits of accuracy can we get out of the theory of evolution?

So, for example, I could ask whether the number pi is 3.141592653589793. If I am working for NASA, the answer is that it is close enough for all possible uses I will encounter. In that sense, it is correct. But, if I am talking to a mathematician, the answer is incorrect because pi is an irrational number and I gave a rational number.

And I can tell you that pi is 3—that number works perfectly well for every use I could possibly have for it.

Nothing in science claims to be *absolutely* correct. Nothing. But it *can* be correct to a certain level of accuracy. So, it *is* correct to say, even for a mathematician, that pi is 3.141592653589793 to 15 decimal places of accuracy. And, if you are doing work that only requires 4 decimal places of accuracy, then it is a perfectly good, even excessive, value to use for your calculations.

But you constantly say things such as "we know that light is both a particle and a wave" when you have just admitted that you either know or should know that science makes no such claim.

Science is getting more and more accurate over time. What does that say about its track record?

Nothing because it presupposes that current scientific fads are accurate in order to make the claim that science is becoming more accurate.

And yet, the position that everything goes around the Earth has been falsified. What you have described are modifications of the basic heliocentric system, not negations of it. Nobody is going to go back to the geocentric model. Nor, for that matter, will they go back to the model proposed by Copernicus.

No, it has NOT been falsified. It is entirely possible that the Earth is the center of the universe. I doubt it, but it's not impossible. Physics only deals with relative motion not with fixed motion.

Furthermore, the solar system *does* provide an inertial reference frame to a very high degree of accuracy. It isn't the *velocity* around the center of our galaxy that is relevant for whether the frame is inertial, it is the *acceleration*. And, while the velocity is moderate, the acceleration is quite low. So, unless you want a great deal of accuracy, using the solar system as an inertial frame is good enough.

So basically you admit that it's wrong because surely you must know that the solar system is constantly experiencing centripetal acceleration. However, you want to make some other point by agreeing with me—the point that I made is that the idea that everything goes around the sun is false but useful.

What you don't seem to see is that neo-Darwinism is also quite probably false but useful.

 

[Zosimus]

What is the fallacy? Science uses Bayesian inference and prediction to update the probabilities of its theories in light of observations, successful/unsuccessful predictions and experiments. Are you saying Bayesian inference is illogical?

Please explain what is the correct logic in going about while deciding what among the solid substances around me are things I can eat to assuage hunger. Since you are very good with logic, this should be no problem. Correct?

First of all, none of your arguments use Bayesian statistics. I have yet to see even one calculation done.

Second, yes, Bayesian inference is illogical and unworkable because of the New Riddle of Induction and the Problem of the Priors.

 

[Zosimus]

Quine and Duhem differed in their positions. Duhem, for example, accepted that it is possible to test ideas in physics. Because of that, and since the other sciences eventually fall back on physics, it *is* possible to test hypotheses even with under determination. Quine has retracted much of his initial position.

I don't see the relevance of either point. Galileo also retracted his position.

 

[Zosimus]

Do you claim to have developed this level of humility yourself? From what I have seen of your attitude and the way you go about sharing your ruminations, you should probably go play A LOT more chess.

Let's play a game sometime. Look me up on FICS or Chess.com

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Let's play a game sometime. Look me up on FICS or Chess.com

A request from a place of humility? I wonder.

I've been teaching my son and we had a few games recently. I don't pretend to be all that good, and for that reason (and also because he is my son, obviously), I would never rub a win in his face. I have this sneaking suspicion, however, that that's precisely what you would do. In fact, I'd wager it's about the only reason you asked.

 

[Polymath257]

No, it's more than that. It's also a claim that gravity occurs because space is curved. Newton, on the other hand, never attempted to explain why gravity occurred.

On the contrary, general relativity describes a mathematical relation between the curvature of space and the stress-energy tensor. It describes the dynamics of particles using geodesics in the resulting curved spacetime. So, just as Newton tried to describe gravity mathematically using forces and his proposed dyanmics (F=ma), Einstein attempted to describe gravity using spacetime curvature and his dynamics (geodetics). Either both are 'laws' or both are 'theories' or there is no real distinction between the two notions. I hold to the latter.

Yes, I know you cum in your pants at the name of Einstein, but in reality his theory is not all you have it cracked up to be. Yes, it works very well at the scale of the solar system, but it cannot explain gravitational interactions between tiny particles nor can it explain the universe in general (see Problems of gravity | plus.maths.org ). What you need is a quantum theory of gravity.

It can explain the universe when combined with thermodynamics until the quantum regime. And, yes, I agree that a quantum theory of gravity is required. But, for example, general relativity explains quite well how 'tiny' particles act under the gravitational influence of, say, the Earth.

No, you know nothing of the sort. You have a theory, but it's just a theory.

No, it is a law. it is a precise mathematical description of what will be seen in observations. Just like Newton's law of gravity. Quantum particles are not the same as classical particles. But they do have a good mathematical description that unites both waves and particles.

I am pleased to see that you have mentioned grue. I thought you were completely ignorant, but it seems that you do have some exposure to the philosophical problems facing science. You don't seem to understand the seriousness of the problem nor do you seem to understand the point of the grue metaphor. The author was not trying to argue that grue was as good of a color as green. He was just asking why we thought so and how we could systematize it.

Understood. What philosophers tend to ignore is that this issue is resolved by stating that we expect the results from experiments to continue to be the same. So, grue fails that basic property while green does not.

For example, if you have a bus and there are three people on the bus, all of whom are headed towards Chicago then a new person who gets on the bus will also be headed towards Chicago. This is a good induction. However, if you have a bus and there are three people on the bus all of whom were born in February that doesn't imply that the next person who gets on the bus will also be born in February.

Um, because the direction of the bus is the direction of the people in the bus?

The question, then, is what separates a "good" induction from a "bad" one? Your answer seems to be "scientists don't actually work that way." However, that's not an answer.

There is nothing a priori that separates them. What is crucial is further testing to see if the results continue to hold. We *never* have absolute confidence in any physical theory (or law). They can *always* be changed if new evidence comes along.

No, my philosophical position is rationalism. Truth an be known a priori. I can simply stop and think about something and come up with truths. Your philosophical position is empiricism. You think that truth can only be gained through sensory data. Rationalism invented math and set theory. As far as I'm aware, there are no scientific discoveries that don't use one or both of these concepts. So, basically, my philosophical position makes your philosophical position wet its pants.

And I completely deny that truths about the real world can be known a priori. That is an utter error.

The reason math (set theory is part of math, by the way) has *some* certainty is that it doesn't attempt to say anything about the physical world. Even a statement as simple as 2+2=4 can fail in the real world (2 liters of water added to two liters of alcohol will not give 4 liters of a mixture). Math is ultimately a *language* in its application to the real world. It does not and cannot give actual truths about anything other than its own formal system.

Yes, I am a formalist when it comes to math.

And I can tell you that pi is 3—that number works perfectly well for every use I could possibly have for it.

Then to the accuracy that you need, it works for you. But if you ever want to get past one significant figure, you will have to do more.

But you constantly say things such as "we know that light is both a particle and a wave" when you have just admitted that you either know or should know that science makes no such claim.

We do know this. it has both particle and wave properties. How those mesh is part of the *theory* of quantum mechanics. But that both wave and particle properties are observed is known.

Nothing because it presupposes that current scientific fads are accurate in order to make the claim that science is becoming more accurate.

No, it does not. It simply means that the results of measurements and the predictions of mathematical theories agree more and more as we progress.

No, it has NOT been falsified. It is entirely possible that the Earth is the center of the universe. I doubt it, but it's not impossible. Physics only deals with relative motion not with fixed motion.

But the Ptolemaic description *has* been falsified. If you want to say that the Earth is the center, you are forced into a more Tychonian viewpoint where planets go around the sun and the sun goes around the Earth.

Also, in a cosmological setting you are wrong about relative versus 'fixed' motion. In an expanding universe, there *is* a preferred reference from at each point: that in which the local expansion is uniformly outward. And, we know that we *are* moving with respect to that reference frame because of the dipole aspects of the background radiation.

So basically you admit that it's wrong because surely you must know that the solar system is constantly experiencing centripetal acceleration. However, you want to make some other point by agreeing with me—the point that I made is that the idea that everything goes around the sun is false but useful.

Again, I do not claim any general scientific theory is true in detail. I claim it to be true to certain levels of accuracy. In the case of the solar system, to include the motion around the galaxy is to complicate matter further than we can currently measure.

What you don't seem to see is that neo-Darwinism is also quite probably false but useful.

Darwinism, yes. Evolution? No.

 

[Jose Fly]

Now let's go to Sayek's gramatically challenged post:

Let P = the theory of evolution
Let Q = a pattern

P => Q
Sentence 1) says that the pattern has been observed. So that's Q
His conclusion: P

This is a textbook example of the affirming the consequent logical fallacy.

Except what you've done is represent the process backwards. In the earlier days of science, it wasn't as if scientists were going around collecting data under the framework of "If evolutionary theory is true, then we should expect to find X". Evolutionary theory didn't even exist yet!

Instead, they collected data and analyzed it to see what it showed. For example, as paleontologists collected more specimens (and their associated data) they began to realize how it showed that life on earth has changed over time, and that as we go further back in time the more different things were. This told them that over very long periods of time, life on earth has been changing, new species have arisen, and other species have gone extinct. So the conclusion that life on earth has been changing over long periods of time did not come about by the "If P then Q" process you outlined. Rather it was an obvious, logical conclusion that stemmed directly from the data.

The next step was the obvious question.....how? By what processes did all this occur? Then various scientists began to propose different answers to that question. Lamarck infamously proposed his notion of acquired characteristics. But that didn't hold up. Then Darwin and Wallace proposed their idea of natural selection, and it turned out to explain much of the data quite well. Then over the next century more and more data was collected and new insights were gained into just how populations change over time, and all that new info and understanding was added onto Darwin's original thesis, giving us Neo-Darwinism.

And much of that understanding didn't come about via the simplistic process you outlined. Instead, it came about via direct observations of how extant populations change over time. If we want to get an understanding of how populations change over time, then we conduct studies in which we watch populations change over time, right? And what did we find? No matter what the circumstances, we saw that new genetic sequences, traits, abilities, and species arise via the general set of mechanisms....mutation, selection, drift. Sure, there are a handful of other factors, but for the most part those are the primary mechanisms behind evolutionary change.

So your characterization that evolutionary theory was assumed from the start and then scientists went around afterwards looking for confirming data is just plain wrong.

His only deviation is the claim (unsupported) that this pattern has no reason to exist otherwise. This is, however, highly disputable. One possible objection is confirmation bias. Creationists would be quick to point out that the Bible says God made fish first. Even if no one were able to think of an alternate explanation, that doesn't mean that an alternate explanation couldn't be discovered tomorrow.

That's not how science works. You don't hold off on reaching any conclusions as long as there is someone else who imagines a different explanation. We don't hold off on concluding that some of the stars in our night sky are galaxies just because some Christians believe the Bible says someday they will all fall to earth, and therefore can't be big.

Many of them are. Surely you know this, and I also wonder why you are going off on a tangent.

It's applying the same line of reasoning you're espousing to a different circumstance.

 

[sayak83]

First of all, none of your arguments use Bayesian statistics. I have yet to see even one calculation done.

Second, yes, Bayesian inference is illogical and unworkable because of the New Riddle of Induction and the Problem of the Priors.

Please provide the logical method by which I should decide which of the various solid objects in the house is something I can put in mouth and assuage hunger. Please justify the method logically.

I am hungry, what should i eat, logically? Please advice.

 

[Polymath257]

You are obviously ignorant of the Quine-Duhem thesis. If you had heard of it, you wouldn't be making such foolish claims.

Let's take a simple example. Let's say that we propose to test the speed of light. We set up a simple experiment and we measure the speed of light, but surprisingly it comes in at over 20 percent below the official "standard" speed of light.

What's wrong? Well, there are multiple possibilities:

1. Our equipment is malfunctioning somehow.
2. Our experiment is badly designed.
3. The speed of light was actually different at the moment we measured it.
4. Something else (covering all possibilities that exist but that I cannot think of or cannot be bothered to enumerate at this point in time).

The point is that every scientific experiment suffers from this problem. When you find that things don't work according to theory clearly something is wrong, but you don't know what.

Thus, as a practical matter, no theory can ever truly be falsified. Theories just fall out of fashion and get replaced by new, more popular ones.

Yes, and what should you do if you get such a result? Or any result for that matter? You should *check* to see if your equipment is malfunctioning. You should *check* and *rethink* to see if your experiment is badly designed. You should *check* that you have your instruments calibrated. You should, in fact, consider as many possibilities as possible and make sure none of them show your results to be wrong. And, in fact, one way to tell the difference between a good scientist and a bad one is whether they do exactly this.

There was actually a case very similar to this not so long ago. The people at CERN found that, by their measurements, neutrinos were going faster than light.
How should they react? If the results were true, it would be ground-breaking and revolutionary. It would require a revision of special relativity. That would be a HUGE deal.

So, what did they do? They went over everything they could think of that would be a problem: was their equipment malfunctioning? Did they neglect to consider the effects from general relativity? Was there a design flaw that they hadn't considered? Was a calibration off? When they were unable to come up any explanation for why they might get a false result, they published their data.

And this is *exactly* what they should have done. Maybe, just maybe, they found a case where neutrinos do move faster than light. But, being human, they presented the case and asked for input.

Eventually, it was found that an extra loop in a wire caused a delay in a signal that negated the result. When the same experiment was done with the correction, no superluminous neutrinos were found.

So, yes, there are always possible alternative explanations. If you come up with one, express it and then *test* to see if that explanation works in practice. If it does, it might well negate your conclusions. Otherwise, you stick with the results of the measurements. Does it seem like an infinite regress? It might. To you. In practice, that regress terminates fairly quickly in any given situation.

You seem to be of the opinion that experiments are done once and for all. But it is *exactly* for the reasons you mention that this is not the case. It shows why *independent* studies and peer review are required to do any actual science.

 

[Polymath257]

How did you learn to walk?

You were young, probably even less than one year old. All the evidence seemed to indicate that you could not walk. You had tried, unsuccessfully, multiple times. Nevertheless, you persisted. Perhaps your parents reassured you that you could do so. Perhaps you made the logical fallacy that if others could walk then so could you. For whatever reason you, filled with faith, persisted in trying to walk and one day you did.

You are a man of faith.

When I was young, I did things in the way of the young. But now I am not young and do things differently.

How did I learn mathematics? I read math books, learned the techniques of proof and verified that the basic results follow from the stated premises. I know full well that math is based on assumptions and that changing those assumptions can lead to different conclusions. Having different rules of inference, or different assumptions concerning sets (Axiom of Choice, anyone?) can lead to fundamentally different results even in a 'fixed' area like mathematics.

So I learned to be skeptical. I learned that intuition is seldom a good way to discover truth. If you do math to any real extent, you see this frequently.

So, for things in the *real* world (as opposed to the formal systems of math and logic), I expect testing, repeatability, and formation of hypotheses that are testable. While not able to give the type of 'certainty' seen in math (where even there it is illusory), it can give a great deal of progress in understanding.

 

[Polymath257]

No, it's more than that. It's also a claim that gravity occurs because space is curved. Newton, on the other hand, never attempted to explain why gravity occurred..

Actually, he did. He said that masses produce a gravitational force on other masses given by F=GMm/r^2. He directly attributed gravity to the amount of mass and the distance between.

Einstein, on the other hand, describes how curvature is related to mass and energy through his equation G=8\pi T. He doesn't explain *why* this equation is true. He doesn't explain *why* mass curves spacetime. He merely claims that it does.

Furthermore, Newton's 'law' of gravity is completely useless without a corresponding 'law' of motion (F=ma). It is only together that the two allow the prediction of orbits, etc.

In *exactly* the same way, Einstein proposed that planets follow geodesics in spacetime. Together with the field equation, this allows for precise predictions of things like orbits. He actually never has to mention the term 'gravity' to explain these.

In modern parlance *both* systems were *theories* of gravity. They are both mathematical formulations proposed to describe how things work in the real world. In practice, one (Einstein's) is much more accurate than the other (Newton's). In that sense, Newton's 'law' of gravity has been falsified. It is incorrect *in detail*. In particular, the classical experiments for general relativity are inconsistent with a Newtonian formalism.

Nonetheless, Newton's ideas are still used because they are *useful* for the levels of accuracy required for most people.

 

[sayak83]

Yes, and what should you do if you get such a result? Or any result for that matter? You should *check* to see if your equipment is malfunctioning. You should *check* and *rethink* to see if your experiment is badly designed. You should *check* that you have your instruments calibrated. You should, in fact, consider as many possibilities as possible and make sure none of them show your results to be wrong. And, in fact, one way to tell the difference between a good scientist and a bad one is whether they do exactly this.

There was actually a case very similar to this not so long ago. The people at CERN found that, by their measurements, neutrinos were going faster than light.
How should they react? If the results were true, it would be ground-breaking and revolutionary. It would require a revision of special relativity. That would be a HUGE deal.

So, what did they do? They went over everything they could think of that would be a problem: was their equipment malfunctioning? Did they neglect to consider the effects from general relativity? Was there a design flaw that they hadn't considered? Was a calibration off? When they were unable to come up any explanation for why they might get a false result, they published their data.

And this is *exactly* what they should have done. Maybe, just maybe, they found a case where neutrinos do move faster than light. But, being human, they presented the case and asked for input.

Eventually, it was found that an extra loop in a wire caused a delay in a signal that negated the result. When the same experiment was done with the correction, no superluminous neutrinos were found.

So, yes, there are always possible alternative explanations. If you come up with one, express it and then *test* to see if that explanation works in practice. If it does, it might well negate your conclusions. Otherwise, you stick with the results of the measurements. Does it seem like an infinite regress? It might. To you. In practice, that regress terminates fairly quickly in any given situation.

You seem to be of the opinion that experiments are done once and for all. But it is *exactly* for the reasons you mention that this is not the case. It shows why *independent* studies and peer review are required to do any actual science.

Scientists are always very careful of such things, not only false positives but also false negatives.
1) Thus scientists retested the data of CMB polarization that appeared to confirm inflation (very big deal) and found it was due to dust. (False positive for a theory corrected).
2) Scientists accepted, after careful scrutiny the data that the expansion of the universe was accelerating even though no theory at that time was predicting it. (Acceptance of novel observations).
3) Scientists accepted the data about Higgs boson and detection of gravity waves that provided strong confirmation of existing theories (Standard Model and GR).
4) Despite huge expectations at LHC that other heavier particles associated with super-symmetry will be found, scientists accepted when nothing was discovered and have gone back to the drawing board. (Acceptance of negative results). Similarly the absence of proton decay, something predicted by scientific theories that many believed were likely true.

Having the ability to modify one's perceptions and models of the world based on new evidence maybe a vice in some circles but its certainly the most important virtue of the scientific method.

 

[Zosimus]

Understood. What philosophers tend to ignore is that this issue is resolved by stating that we expect the results from experiments to continue to be the same. So, grue fails that basic property while green does not.

This statement shows that you have no comprehension of the argument. Every new emerald that we observe is both grue and green. You expect the results from experiments to continue to be the same—and they are. Emeralds reliable continue to be the same color, but are they grue or are they green? Everyone agrees that they are green, but if you met an alien from another planet who was firmly convinced that they were grue, how would you convince him otherwise?

Um, because the direction of the bus is the direction of the people in the bus?

Again, another answer that shows that you lack comprehension of the point being made. The point is not to differentiate the situation of people on the bus. This is an example that we are supposed to use to think about developing a rule that could make induction reliable. Lots of people use induction all the time, and lots of them get burned. How many people have said, "Stocks went up last year and they went up this year, so I'll buy them now and next year, when they go up again, I'll be filthy rich" only to lose their shirts in the market?

There is nothing a priori that separates them. What is crucial is further testing to see if the results continue to hold. We *never* have absolute confidence in any physical theory (or law). They can *always* be changed if new evidence comes along.

That's not an answer to the fundamental problem, rather it is an admission that the problem is unsolvable and a determination to push on in the face of an unworkable system.

And I completely deny that truths about the real world can be known a priori. That is an utter error.

Truth exists.
Assume, for the sake of argument, that truth does not exist. In that case the statement "Truth does not exist" is held to be true.
Thus, we have a contradiction. The initial assumption "truth does not exist" must be false.
Therefore, truth must exist.
Q.E.D.
Above, we have a truth about the real world that was deduced a priori. Accordingly, you cannot claim that truths about the real world cannot be known a priori, as I have just shown that they can.

The reason math (set theory is part of math, by the way) has *some* certainty is that it doesn't attempt to say anything about the physical world. Even a statement as simple as 2+2=4 can fail in the real world (2 liters of water added to two liters of alcohol will not give 4 liters of a mixture). Math is ultimately a *language* in its application to the real world. It does not and cannot give actual truths about anything other than its own formal system.

Well, math has no relationship to the physical world. It is a deductive system. No one thinks, "Gosh, I wonder whether 2+2=5 if you are very near a black hole" or "Maybe at a very high relativistic speed 2+2 will approach 5." Math is a tool, but it's surprising how effective a tool it is. Science would not know anything without this tool. This tool is not empirical in any way. So again, we see that truth can be determined a priori.

We do know this. it has both particle and wave properties. How those mesh is part of the *theory* of quantum mechanics. But that both wave and particle properties are observed is known.

No, you don't know this. How is it that you think you know this? Here's your logic pattern.
If light is both a particle and a wave, it will show attributes of both.
It shows attributes of both.
Therefore, light is both a particle and a wave.
This is a textbook example of the affirming the consequent logical fallacy.

 

[Zosimus]

Except what you've done is represent the process backwards. In the earlier days of science, it wasn't as if scientists were going around collecting data under the framework of "If evolutionary theory is true, then we should expect to find X". Evolutionary theory didn't even exist yet!

Instead, they collected data and analyzed it to see what it showed. For example, as paleontologists collected more specimens (and their associated data) they began to realize how it showed that life on earth has changed over time, and that as we go further back in time the more different things were. This told them that over very long periods of time, life on earth has been changing, new species have arisen, and other species have gone extinct. So the conclusion that life on earth has been changing over long periods of time did not come about by the "If P then Q" process you outlined. Rather it was an obvious, logical conclusion that stemmed directly from the data.

The next step was the obvious question.....how? By what processes did all this occur? Then various scientists began to propose different answers to that question. Lamarck infamously proposed his notion of acquired characteristics. But that didn't hold up. Then Darwin and Wallace proposed their idea of natural selection, and it turned out to explain much of the data quite well. Then over the next century more and more data was collected and new insights were gained into just how populations change over time, and all that new info and understanding was added onto Darwin's original thesis, giving us Neo-Darwinism.

And much of that understanding didn't come about via the simplistic process you outlined. Instead, it came about via direct observations of how extant populations change over time. If we want to get an understanding of how populations change over time, then we conduct studies in which we watch populations change over time, right? And what did we find? No matter what the circumstances, we saw that new genetic sequences, traits, abilities, and species arise via the general set of mechanisms....mutation, selection, drift. Sure, there are a handful of other factors, but for the most part those are the primary mechanisms behind evolutionary change.

So your characterization that evolutionary theory was assumed from the start and then scientists went around afterwards looking for confirming data is just plain wrong.

You have completely mischaracterized my argument. I hope you simply have not understood it.

The same logic that you have employed could explain how astrology came to be. Or voodoo. Or witch doctors. People observed the world, saw patterns, and drew generalizations to explain them. Yet somehow you think that your generalizations are right whereas everyone else's generalizations are wrong. Why is this?

You will doubtless say "because we see confirmation everywhere." Yes. And Marxists see confirmation for Marxism every time they pick up a newspaper. They see in every story the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeois. Their theory is always confirmed.

What does this prove? Nothing. The only thing we know is that every data set can be seen through the lens of your pet theory.

 

[sayak83]

This statement shows that you have no comprehension of the argument. Every new emerald that we observe is both grue and green. You expect the results from experiments to continue to be the same—and they are. Emeralds reliable continue to be the same color, but are they grue or are they green? Everyone agrees that they are green, but if you met an alien from another planet who was firmly convinced that they were grue, how would you convince him otherwise?


Again, another answer that shows that you lack comprehension of the point being made. The point is not to differentiate the situation of people on the bus. This is an example that we are supposed to use to think about developing a rule that could make induction reliable. Lots of people use induction all the time, and lots of them get burned. How many people have said, "Stocks went up last year and they went up this year, so I'll buy them now and next year, when they go up again, I'll be filthy rich" only to lose their shirts in the market?


That's not an answer to the fundamental problem, rather it is an admission that the problem is unsolvable and a determination to push on in the face of an unworkable system.


Truth exists.
Assume, for the sake of argument, that truth does not exist. In that case the statement "Truth does not exist" is held to be true.
Thus, we have a contradiction. The initial assumption "truth does not exist" must be false.
Therefore, truth must exist.
Q.E.D.
Above, we have a truth about the real world that was deduced a priori. Accordingly, you cannot claim that truths about the real world cannot be known a priori, as I have just shown that they can.


Well, math has no relationship to the physical world. It is a deductive system. No one thinks, "Gosh, I wonder whether 2+2=5 if you are very near a black hole" or "Maybe at a very high relativistic speed 2+2 will approach 5." Math is a tool, but it's surprising how effective a tool it is. Science would not know anything without this tool. This tool is not empirical in any way. So again, we see that truth can be determined a priori.


No, you don't know this. How is it that you think you know this? Here's your logic pattern.
If light is both a particle and a wave, it will show attributes of both.
It shows attributes of both.
Therefore, light is both a particle and a wave.
This is a textbook example of the affirming the consequent logical fallacy.

[/QUOTE]
I am still waiting for you to provide the infallible logical rule by which to decide which of the solid objects I am supposed to put in my mouth to eat. Getting very hungry. Please help.

 

[Polymath257]

This statement shows that you have no comprehension of the argument. Every new emerald that we observe is both grue and green. You expect the results from experiments to continue to be the same—and they are. Emeralds reliable continue to be the same color, but are they grue or are they green? Everyone agrees that they are green, but if you met an alien from another planet who was firmly convinced that they were grue, how would you convince him otherwise?

What I would do is show him the results of a measurement of the wavelength of light reflected from the ruby. I would then claim that the measurement will not change over time. Since the grue situation requires a change in the actual measurement, a discontinuity, it is the one that can be discarded.

Again, another answer that shows that you lack comprehension of the point being made. The point is not to differentiate the situation of people on the bus. This is an example that we are supposed to use to think about developing a rule that could make induction reliable. Lots of people use induction all the time, and lots of them get burned. How many people have said, "Stocks went up last year and they went up this year, so I'll buy them now and next year, when they go up again, I'll be filthy rich" only to lose their shirts in the market?

Induction is not a logical proof in the sense of mathematics. If that is what you are hoping for, then you will be seriously disappointed. Even in math, no amount of testing will absolutely prove a proposition without a general proof.

That's not an answer to the fundamental problem, rather it is an admission that the problem is unsolvable and a determination to push on in the face of an unworkable system.

No, it is the dechlorination to push on in the face of uncertainty. The fact is that it has been shown to be quite workable.

Truth exists.
Assume, for the sake of argument, that truth does not exist. In that case the statement "Truth does not exist" is held to be true.
Thus, we have a contradiction. The initial assumption "truth does not exist" must be false.
Therefore, truth must exist.
Q.E.D.
Above, we have a truth about the real world that was deduced a priori. Accordingly, you cannot claim that truths about the real world cannot be known a priori, as I have just shown that they can.

A. You did not establish anything about the real world. You only showed something about a certain (poor) formal system.
B. You did NOT show that 'truth' exists. You merely showed one statement to be true.

Well, math has no relationship to the physical world. It is a deductive system. No one thinks, "Gosh, I wonder whether 2+2=5 if you are very near a black hole" or "Maybe at a very high relativistic speed 2+2 will approach 5." Math is a tool, but it's surprising how effective a tool it is. Science would not know anything without this tool. This tool is not empirical in any way. So again, we see that truth can be determined a priori.

But it *can* be a very relevant question whether, for example, baryon number, is preserved close to a black hole. The question isn't whether the *formal* statement that 2+2=4 is correct. The question is whether that formal statement is useful to help explain and predict certain things about the real world. The *only* reason it is useful is that there are certain 'conservation laws' which are described additively. But the validity of those laws needs to be tested. They cannot simply be assumed a priori.

No, you don't know this. How is it that you think you know this? Here's your logic pattern.
If light is both a particle and a wave, it will show attributes of both.
It shows attributes of both.
Therefore, light is both a particle and a wave.
This is a textbook example of the affirming the consequent logical fallacy.

[/QUOTE]

No, my logic is that if it *isn't* both a wave and a particle, it wouldn't show the properties of both.

Do you disagree that
P=>Q
~Q
----------
~P

is a logical deduction?

 

[Zosimus]

Please provide the logical method by which I should decide which of the various solid objects in the house is something I can put in mouth and assuage hunger. Please justify the method logically.

I am hungry, what should i eat, logically? Please advice.

First of all, your question is completely off topic. I asked you to justify Bayesian epistemology and since you couldn't you started asking me about how to logically determine what there is in our house that can be eaten to assuage hunger?

Second, the problem is one that is handled by elementary decision theory. Depending on your exact goals, you will choose one of the min-max scenarios available to you. It is fundamentally no different from choosing whether to have a smoke detector in your house or whether to buy fire insurance.

Finally, as you know, most people simply react to food emotionally. People eat what they want to eat even though what they eat is often unhealthy. What does that ultimately prove except that people are irrational?

 

[Zosimus]

When I was young, I did things in the way of the young. But now I am not young and do things differently.

How did I learn mathematics? I read math books, learned the techniques of proof and verified that the basic results follow from the stated premises. I know full well that math is based on assumptions and that changing those assumptions can lead to different conclusions. Having different rules of inference, or different assumptions concerning sets (Axiom of Choice, anyone?) can lead to fundamentally different results even in a 'fixed' area like mathematics.

So I learned to be skeptical. I learned that intuition is seldom a good way to discover truth. If you do math to any real extent, you see this frequently.

So, for things in the *real* world (as opposed to the formal systems of math and logic), I expect testing, repeatability, and formation of hypotheses that are testable. While not able to give the type of 'certainty' seen in math (where even there it is illusory), it can give a great deal of progress in understanding.

Let's probe that more deeply. Why did you read math books? What made you think that you were capable of learning math? What made you think that math was important?

 

[Polymath257]

You have completely mischaracterized my argument. I hope you simply have not understood it.

The same logic that you have employed could explain how astrology came to be. Or voodoo. Or witch doctors. People observed the world, saw patterns, and drew generalizations to explain them. Yet somehow you think that your generalizations are right whereas everyone else's generalizations are wrong. Why is this?

You will doubtless say "because we see confirmation everywhere." Yes. And Marxists see confirmation for Marxism every time they pick up a newspaper. They see in every story the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeois. Their theory is always confirmed.

What does this prove? Nothing. The only thing we know is that every data set can be seen through the lens of your pet theory.

So, get the different perspectives to make clear predictions ahead of time and to formulate an experiment or observation that ALL agree will be determinative. Do the test and see what happens.

The problem with voodoo and Marxism is that they never give specific predictions that are testable. But this is a basic requirement. ALL have to agree ahead of time on the criteria of success and failure of the different viewpoints.