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Does falsification provide the most accurate model of understanding for the progress of scientific knowledge?
Results so far:
| Yes | 37% | 141 votes | Total: 384 votes | |
| No | 63% | 243 votes |
Yes
by Joe Murray
Created on: July 21, 2008
One cannot become too exercised with the proponents of Creationism because, unlike a religion-based doctrine, science has the ability to refute itself, a faculty that is usually destructive to any faith-based discipline.
The property of falsification is the best answer to that most subtle of philosophical dilemmas, the inductive argument. Also known as the Fallacy of False Cause, it is the problem of ascribing an effect to a particular cause, or, deriving a general conclusion from its particulars. (The method of mathematical induction is not quite the same as it involves a type of pattern recognition.) For example, if we start with an axiomatic first premise in the syllogism below, we might be led to this:
God is Everywhere
Everywhere there is a Little Evil
Therefore, God is a Little Evil
The inductive reasoning is in the second premise. How can I infer that there's a little evil everywhere? Have I been everywhere? Define "Evil." Define "Little Evil." And how can I know any of this with absolute certainty?
Strictly speaking, though the syllogism above is structurally sound, the middle premise is not, scientifically, permissible.
Consider a more prosaic example:
Every time I walk down the street past my neighbor's very angry dog, my neighbor's very angry dog barks at me and tries to jump the fence to bite me. Therefore, the next time I walk down the street, I can expect my neighbor's very angry dog to bark at me again.
Now, how can I possibly get away with this reasoning? I mean, if I linger in front of the gate, surely, one of these days that dog is going jump the fence and bite me.
David Hume solved the problem for us ordinary folk when he wrote that, "All inferences from experience, therefore, are effects of custom, not of reasoning." That is, if I am accustomed to something always happening, then I can be reasonably certain that it's going to happen again. Theologians call this "faith." Scientists call it "theory."
Karl Popper formulated an extreme rejoinder to Hume by asserting that scientific theory evolves by surviving a series of tests seeking to falsify it. Max Black summed up Popper this way: "The task of empirical science is falsification, putting to the trial of experience bold conjectures' about the world, and not the impossible task of discovering truth."
In "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," Thomas Kuhn is chary of Popper's absolutism, but admits that Kuhn's "anomalous experience" is nearly the same thing as Popper's "falsification." Anomalous experience is the unexpected experimental result that, when correctly explained, becomes part of a paradigm. And when anomalies accrue, science experiences a crisis that, when driven by increasingly contradictory evidence (and social pressure), is rectified by a scientific revolution that replaces the old paradigm (theory) with a new one.
However, Kuhn argues, the old paradigm doesn't cease being part of science. James Clerk Maxwell based his electromagnetic field equations on the eddies and pressures of a universal ether. Though the theory of the ether was falsified in the 1880s, Maxwell's equations remain valid. In fact, Kuhn might argue, a series of discoveries and falsifications in the last 20 years of the 19th Century eventually gave us the theory of relativity.
Imre Kakatos even posited that a mathematical theorem (think theory) is only INFORMALLY true (this is the radical part of his philosophy) until its suspect error is revealed by counterexample or refutation. That Kakatos rejected the idea of formal proof is an extension perhaps of Popper's trial by experiment.
And Popper's trial by experiment explains the methodology of Kuhn's "normal science," especially since the chemical revolution of the late 1700s.
This is why there's no single discoverer of anything. All discoveries must be verified by at least one other investigator. Which is why history records not one, but three independent astronomers who reported discovering stellar parallax in the 1830s. But once one discovers stellar parallax, it can't be undiscovered.
And a field observation or controlled experiment, if purporting to discover something new, will be re-performed in PERPETUITY as part of the classroom experience, until some graduate student announces the conclusion to be erroneous some 5 to 500 years later.
Aristotle claimed that there are only three perfect sciences, geometry, astronomy, and theology, because all three ascribe to study the "perfect."
Today, it is the rare working scientist who would not regard a theory to be credible unless it can be observed, tested, measured, deduced, reduced, rationalized, explained, and capable of refutation. For how can we know anything with any certainty if perceived through the prejudice of our own subjectivity? This is the Achilles' heel of plain old everyday perception.
Ultimately, what Popper meant was that if we can eliminate what isn't true by falsification, then at least we can attempt to understand what's possibly true.
The following references were consulted for the composition of this article:
Thomas S. Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," "Foundations of the Unity of Science," Vol. II, No. 2, 2nd ed., The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1974.
From: "Introductory Philosophy," eds. Frank A. Tillman, Bernard Berofsky, John O'Connor, Harper and Sons, Publishers, NY, 1971.
David Hume, "Causality and Induction."
Max Black, "Justification of Induction."
Carl G. Hempel, "Explanation in Science and in History."
And, given that I typed most of this at my sister's house without specific references or an encyclopedia (except for the ones I toted in a book bag), I must confess to cramming up on Imre Kakatos on Wikipedia.
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No
by Mary W. Matthews
Created on: July 24, 2008
Falsification is the action of disproving a proposition, hypothesis, or theorem. It is not falsification but FALSIFIABILITY that is one of the important principles undergirding scientific progress.
Falsifiabil ity — also called refutability and testability — is the logical possibility that a proposition, hypothesis, or theorem can be disproved, either through direct observation (Neil Armstrong "discovered" that the Moon is NOT made of green cheese), logic, or scientific experimentation.
For example, "The sun rises in the East" is a falsifiable statement. "God loves me more than God loves you" is a false statement, but it is not falsifiable. Could you observe that it is not true? Could you rebut it using only the rules of logic? Could you design a scientific experiment to disprove it? (Do you live your life by similar false-but-not-falsif iable ideas, like "God loves me more than God loves Islamic jihadists / Nazi skinheads / gays / abortionists / liberals / left-handed people / women / fill-in-the-blank"?)
Science couldn't be science without the scientific method. A scientist wakes up one morning and wonders about an unanswered question — for example, "Is the sky really a dome made of hammered metal, as the 'inerrant' Bible says it is?" (Gen. 1:6-8, 1:14-17, 7:11, 11:4; Job 37:18; Ezekiel 1:22; Enoch 72:2-5; and many other places)
The next step is to form a hypothesis: "The sky is a dome made of hammered bronze." The scientist will proceed to use observation, logic, or scientific experimentation to see whether or not the sky is made of hammered bronze. (The verses in the Bible that call the sky a metal dome date from the Bronze Age or earlier.) Whether or not it is false, the hypothesis is FALSIFIABLE.
The scientist proceeds to test the hypothesis: will it turn out to be true or false? Then the scientist publishes the results of her tests, and other scientists review the results. Is the scientist's reasoning sound? Are there facts the scientist did not know, overlooked, or ignored? Were the scientist's experiments well designed? Is the data garnered from the experiments reliable? Can the experiments be reproduced by other scientists?
In the next step, many scientists compile dozens and dozens of tested hypotheses to form a theory. Gravity is a famous scientific theory that virtually everyone alive accepts as fact; so are Einstein's theories of relativity.
According to Stephen Hawking (in A Brief History of Time), "a theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations . . . and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations." The scientific theory of natural selection, commonly miscalled evolution, is a good theory by this definition. The religious hypothesis that evolution is false rejects the literally billions of observations of biology, chemistry, archeology, biochemistry, medicine, and physics, AND all their predictions about the results of future observations, in favor of one theological proclamation that is a MINIMUM of 2,933 years old and must be taken on faith alone.
Hawking adds, "Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it." You can never PROVE that if you jump off the roof, you will fall; gravity might suddenly cease to exist for you, in which case you'd just float there until someone lassoed you down.
"No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory," Hawking continues, "you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation [that] disagrees with the predictions of the theory." In other words, the theory is falsifiable.
Falsifia bility is often thought to be the answer to the problems caused by inductive reasoning. For example, "This swan is white" is a statement of observation. "All swans are white" is a statement of inductive reasoning. It was a valid scientific theory for centuries — until someone saw a black swan, that is.
There are two big problems with inductive reasoning. First, there is always the possibility of a black swan. Second, just because something has been true up until now does not mean it must ALWAYS be true. "The sun will rise in the East tomorrow" is a safe bet in the real world, but not in the world of science. There is always the possibility that some time today or tonight, the magnetic poles of the Earth will shift, so that East tomorrow will be where Southeast was today. Or the sun could explode overnight, or the Daleks could kidnap the planet.
Falsifiabilit y attempts to address the problems with inductive reasoning by turning them upside-down. Inductive reasoning says, "If A is true, then B is true. B is true. Therefore A is true." Falsifiability says, "If A is true, then B is true. B is false. Therefore A is false."
But falsifiability is not the be-all and end-all of science, and understanding falsifiability is not the best way to model scientific progress. Falsifiability is like a game of musical chairs, where the one theory left when the music stops must be true. Scientific progress is more like shopping to make stew for dinner when stew hasn't been invented yet. Is the beef too old and stringy? Choose a better package. Are the potatoes gooshy? Are the carrots limp? Hey, I'll bet onions would taste good, let's try some and see. Peas might taste good too, you never know until you try.
Scientific explanations of the world are based not on falsification or falsifiability, but rather on logical thought, carefully designed experimentation, peer review, and reproducibility. Religious explanations of the world are based on faith that the statements in the religion's holy book (a) are immutably True for all time, and (b) no matter how ancient the scrolls of tanned animal skins or mashed river reeds, the holy book was written out of a culture, zeitgeist, and ethos identical to today's. (I have read dozens of arguments about Mary and Martha in the kitchen. In first-century Bethany, there WERE NO kitchens!)
Here is the most accurate model for understanding scientific progress: Moses comes down from the top of the mountain. "God told me to tell you [fill in the blank]," Moses says.
Religious belief says, "Okay, Moses. If you say God said it, then God said it."
Science says, "Sez you, Moses! PROVE IT!"
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