5 ms·

> Strong Scientism: Of all the knowledge we have, scientific knowledge is the only “real knowledge.” Stupid question. What is an example of a hypothesis that i

by acover 10y ago

> Strong Scientism: Of all the knowledge we have, scientific knowledge is the only “real knowledge.” Stupid question. What is an example of a hypothesis that is not falsifiable by experiment but should still be considered "knowledge"?

palad1n 10y ago
I think therefore I am?
- acover 10y ago
  Yes. Maybe. Is it an axiom of the scientific method? [No?] Is it a tautology? [Maybe?] Are there other examples other than the basis of knowledge being knowledge? [?]
  - IsaacL 10y ago
    1. "There is an objective reality". 2. "Reality is consistent". 3. "The human mind is capable of knowledge about reality". These all need to be taken as axioms if any further knowledge is going to be possible. There's a book called Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology which covers this in much more detail. (Ayn Rand gets a bad rep, but few people know about her theories of concepts and knowledge. They indicate the path to solving many of the issues in philosophy of science).
kijin 10y ago
Whatever we need to take for granted in order for a scientific experiment to mean anything at all. Most of mathematics and logic would fall into this category: we can't falsify 1 + 1 = 2 by experiment, but if we throw it out, we won't have any science at all. A lot of people believe that fundamental principles of ethics also belong there. For example, we may be able to demonstrate whether or not something is a net benefit to the combined happiness of sentient beings, but I cannot see how one might even attempt to falsify the hypothesis that sentient beings matter at all.
- acover 10y ago
  1+1=2 is falsifiable as it relates to an experiment. You could show that in an experiment that when you "add" a "one" and another "one" together you do not get "two". If it doesn't aid in understanding the world then I'm not sure it qualifies as knowledge.
  - icen 10y ago
    How do you go about testing the hypothesis that 1 + 1 = 2? Not just showing that a particular physical representation obeys the logical laws of arithmetic, but to test the actual laws themselves.
    - jamesrcole 10y ago
      The point is that it's not a hypothesis. Or, at least there are views about maths where it's not a hypothesis.
      - icen 10y ago
        So it's something that's not a scientific hypothesis, but is considered knowledge! (Or, if as in the other comment chain, 1+1=2 is too obvious, you can take any sufficiently non-trivial theorem of your choosing).
        jamesrcole 10y ago
        Under the view I'm describing any statement like that is a kind of definition, not something that is true or false. You can investigate whether it is consistent with other definitions. I believe that doing so is empirical work, which I think is consistent with a broad notion of science
    - acover 10y ago
      I could be wrong but if you wanted to test the hypothesis: given the rules of addition show that 1 + 1 = 2 can be deduced. The experiment would be to go about the deduction. It is falsifiable.
icen 10y ago
1+1=2 And no, apples are not the same things as numbers.
- jamesrcole 10y ago
  Some people would say that the relational patterns in numbers are a kind of definition, and that such statements aren't so much truths but consequences of those patterns - and that it's only when you're using the two '1's to represent real world details that the '2' is true or false. (and BTW, there are real-world situations where '1' and '1' do not make '2'... e.g. putting a snake and a mouse in a box. We only apply maths statements like that to the kinds of entities/situations where they will apply).
- werpon 10y ago
  That's an axiom. It doesn't say anything about the real world, it just introduces a framework of thought. In other words, if you can imagine a reality where 1+1=2 for some meaning of '1', '2', '+' and '=', then a series of conclusions will hold true.
  - icen 10y ago
    But all that says is that 1+1=2 is too obvious. How about some other, less straightforward mathematical theorem, then, like Fermat's Last Theorem. You can hardly accuse that of being an axiom, or just introducing frameworks of thought.
    - larksimian 10y ago
      Mathematics is based on logical deduction. You start with a set of rules and you prove additional rules. Science is based on (lots of things but primarily) empirical induction. You observe some phenomena, decide that they are of the same type, generate a model that predicts how all phenomena of that type behave. By necessity you observe an infinitesimal fraction of the phenomena in your type. In math proofs are universal and timeless and complete. There is no additional observation to be made. A proof can be wrong, but if we conclude that it is logically correct then that's it. (edit: well, there's the incompleteness theorem: it could be that a set of axioms is inconsistent, but then EVERYTHING based on those axioms becomes invalid. It's still quite different than scientific progress which changes models a little bit at a time.) Scientific models are approximations of reality(very good approximations often!) but they get tweaked as new observations come in. Or just wholesale thrown out(or at least become obsolete), see Newtonian orbital mechanics vs relativistic orbital mechanics. Newton was right-ish, but relativistic solutions are right-er(possibly fully correct?)[1]. With deductive reasoning you are expanding a definition. With inductive reasoning you are guessing at connections between observed events. [1] http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/26408/what-did-general-relativity-clarify-about-mercury http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/26408/what-did-ge...
vanderZwan 10y ago
This is not an answer to your exact question, but when people say "falsifiable" they usually mean something much more rigorous than what is possible within qualitative research[0] (and I'm not criticising qualitative research here), yet insights can still be gained from it. I switched from physics to art to (ultimately) design and programming. You have no idea how much ignorance many physicists have of research that isn't easily quantifiable and turned into predictive formulas. I had to go through a period of growing more "aware" of my tunnel-vision myself. As a result, flat-out rejection of entire fields of research, claiming they do not create "real" knowledge is common. On the flipside there's people trying to apply physics-style reductionism to problems that simply don't fit, because human societies aren't built up of spherical frictionless humans in a vacuum[1]. Example: I did my master thesis of interaction design on gesture interfaces (the waving-hands-in-the-air kind, not the touchscreen kind), a topic that has been researched over forty years but has yet to really break through. One paper I read mentioned that on average the right index finger was raised one-point-zero-something times more often than the left. Sample size twenty or so. I still don't know how that is supposed to help me design better interfaces; right-handedness being the norm is a known, and I cannot conclude anything from these numbers. But hey, it's quantified and measured, therefore "proper" knowledge! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_research [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow
kriro 10y ago
Not related to hypotheses but most axiomatic systems and the apparatus of deduction that accompanies them would probably qualify as they are not scientific (by the circular definition that anything that uses the scientific method is scientific). The most notable example would be mathematics. I'd argue that mathematics provides knowledge (as in it helps me understand stuff better).
TuringTest 10y ago
> What is an example of a hypothesis that is not falsifiable by experiment but should still be considered "knowledge"? As the paper points out, things like the following are problematic from a purely experimental approach: "Scientific knowledge is better than non-scientific knowledge." Yet many scientists treat it as common knowledge.
- acover 10y ago
  > "Scientific knowledge is better than non-scientific knowledge." Isn't this a falsifiable hypothesis? If you analyzed various predictions made by scientific and non scientific knowledge then you could compare them and determine if one was "better". That historical performance might not hold but the sun may not rise in the east. That the scientific method has not be employed because our heuristics say the answer is obvious does not mean it cannot be employed. I do agree that the scientific method is too high a bar for something to be considered knowledge.
  - TuringTest 10y ago
    But how do you define "better" from a scientific standpoint, and through a scientific process?
    - AstralStorm 10y ago
      Pragmatic utilitarism. It works and produces most beneficial results among tested methods. The problem is labelling what is beneficial and what is not. That is a value judgement. But if certain human rights are universal, we can agree on at least a subset of benefits.
      - TuringTest 10y ago
        > Pragmatic utilitarism. That's an acceptance that philosophy is useful. Pragmatic utilitarian is one kind of philosophy. > The problem is labelling what is beneficial and what is not. That is a value judgement. See my reply to the other post above. [1] Philosophy is the discipline that specialises in the problem of rational analysis of value judgements. A good way to agree on which rights and valuable benefits to use is to discuss them philosophically. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14007546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14007546

by acover 10y ago

palad1n 10y ago

I think therefore I am?

acover 10y ago
Yes. Maybe. Is it an axiom of the scientific method? [No?] Is it a tautology? [Maybe?] Are there other examples other than the basis of knowledge being knowledge? [?]
- IsaacL 10y ago
  1. "There is an objective reality". 2. "Reality is consistent". 3. "The human mind is capable of knowledge about reality". These all need to be taken as axioms if any further knowledge is going to be possible. There's a book called Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology which covers this in much more detail. (Ayn Rand gets a bad rep, but few people know about her theories of concepts and knowledge. They indicate the path to solving many of the issues in philosophy of science).

kijin 10y ago

Whatever we need to take for granted in order for a scientific experiment to mean anything at all. Most of mathematics and logic would fall into this category: we can't falsify 1 + 1 = 2 by experiment, but if we throw it out, we won't have any science at all. A lot of people believe that fundamental principles of ethics also belong there. For example, we may be able to demonstrate whether or not something is a net benefit to the combined happiness of sentient beings, but I cannot see how one might even attempt to falsify the hypothesis that sentient beings matter at all.

acover 10y ago
1+1=2 is falsifiable as it relates to an experiment. You could show that in an experiment that when you "add" a "one" and another "one" together you do not get "two". If it doesn't aid in understanding the world then I'm not sure it qualifies as knowledge.
- icen 10y ago
  How do you go about testing the hypothesis that 1 + 1 = 2? Not just showing that a particular physical representation obeys the logical laws of arithmetic, but to test the actual laws themselves.
  - jamesrcole 10y ago
    The point is that it's not a hypothesis. Or, at least there are views about maths where it's not a hypothesis.
    - icen 10y ago
      So it's something that's not a scientific hypothesis, but is considered knowledge! (Or, if as in the other comment chain, 1+1=2 is too obvious, you can take any sufficiently non-trivial theorem of your choosing).
      - jamesrcole 10y ago
        Under the view I'm describing any statement like that is a kind of definition, not something that is true or false. You can investigate whether it is consistent with other definitions. I believe that doing so is empirical work, which I think is consistent with a broad notion of science
  - acover 10y ago
    I could be wrong but if you wanted to test the hypothesis: given the rules of addition show that 1 + 1 = 2 can be deduced. The experiment would be to go about the deduction. It is falsifiable.

icen 10y ago

1+1=2 And no, apples are not the same things as numbers.

jamesrcole 10y ago
Some people would say that the relational patterns in numbers are a kind of definition, and that such statements aren't so much truths but consequences of those patterns - and that it's only when you're using the two '1's to represent real world details that the '2' is true or false. (and BTW, there are real-world situations where '1' and '1' do not make '2'... e.g. putting a snake and a mouse in a box. We only apply maths statements like that to the kinds of entities/situations where they will apply).
werpon 10y ago
That's an axiom. It doesn't say anything about the real world, it just introduces a framework of thought. In other words, if you can imagine a reality where 1+1=2 for some meaning of '1', '2', '+' and '=', then a series of conclusions will hold true.
- icen 10y ago
  But all that says is that 1+1=2 is too obvious. How about some other, less straightforward mathematical theorem, then, like Fermat's Last Theorem. You can hardly accuse that of being an axiom, or just introducing frameworks of thought.
  - larksimian 10y ago
    Mathematics is based on logical deduction. You start with a set of rules and you prove additional rules. Science is based on (lots of things but primarily) empirical induction. You observe some phenomena, decide that they are of the same type, generate a model that predicts how all phenomena of that type behave. By necessity you observe an infinitesimal fraction of the phenomena in your type. In math proofs are universal and timeless and complete. There is no additional observation to be made. A proof can be wrong, but if we conclude that it is logically correct then that's it. (edit: well, there's the incompleteness theorem: it could be that a set of axioms is inconsistent, but then EVERYTHING based on those axioms becomes invalid. It's still quite different than scientific progress which changes models a little bit at a time.) Scientific models are approximations of reality(very good approximations often!) but they get tweaked as new observations come in. Or just wholesale thrown out(or at least become obsolete), see Newtonian orbital mechanics vs relativistic orbital mechanics. Newton was right-ish, but relativistic solutions are right-er(possibly fully correct?)[1]. With deductive reasoning you are expanding a definition. With inductive reasoning you are guessing at connections between observed events. [1] http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/26408/what-did-general-relativity-clarify-about-mercury http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/26408/what-did-ge...

vanderZwan 10y ago

This is not an answer to your exact question, but when people say "falsifiable" they usually mean something much more rigorous than what is possible within qualitative research[0] (and I'm not criticising qualitative research here), yet insights can still be gained from it. I switched from physics to art to (ultimately) design and programming. You have no idea how much ignorance many physicists have of research that isn't easily quantifiable and turned into predictive formulas. I had to go through a period of growing more "aware" of my tunnel-vision myself. As a result, flat-out rejection of entire fields of research, claiming they do not create "real" knowledge is common. On the flipside there's people trying to apply physics-style reductionism to problems that simply don't fit, because human societies aren't built up of spherical frictionless humans in a vacuum[1]. Example: I did my master thesis of interaction design on gesture interfaces (the waving-hands-in-the-air kind, not the touchscreen kind), a topic that has been researched over forty years but has yet to really break through. One paper I read mentioned that on average the right index finger was raised one-point-zero-something times more often than the left. Sample size twenty or so. I still don't know how that is supposed to help me design better interfaces; right-handedness being the norm is a known, and I cannot conclude anything from these numbers. But hey, it's quantified and measured, therefore "proper" knowledge! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_research [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow

kriro 10y ago

Not related to hypotheses but most axiomatic systems and the apparatus of deduction that accompanies them would probably qualify as they are not scientific (by the circular definition that anything that uses the scientific method is scientific). The most notable example would be mathematics. I'd argue that mathematics provides knowledge (as in it helps me understand stuff better).

TuringTest 10y ago

> What is an example of a hypothesis that is not falsifiable by experiment but should still be considered "knowledge"? As the paper points out, things like the following are problematic from a purely experimental approach: "Scientific knowledge is better than non-scientific knowledge." Yet many scientists treat it as common knowledge.

acover 10y ago
> "Scientific knowledge is better than non-scientific knowledge." Isn't this a falsifiable hypothesis? If you analyzed various predictions made by scientific and non scientific knowledge then you could compare them and determine if one was "better". That historical performance might not hold but the sun may not rise in the east. That the scientific method has not be employed because our heuristics say the answer is obvious does not mean it cannot be employed. I do agree that the scientific method is too high a bar for something to be considered knowledge.
- TuringTest 10y ago
  But how do you define "better" from a scientific standpoint, and through a scientific process?
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    Pragmatic utilitarism. It works and produces most beneficial results among tested methods. The problem is labelling what is beneficial and what is not. That is a value judgement. But if certain human rights are universal, we can agree on at least a subset of benefits.
    - TuringTest 10y ago
      > Pragmatic utilitarism. That's an acceptance that philosophy is useful. Pragmatic utilitarian is one kind of philosophy. > The problem is labelling what is beneficial and what is not. That is a value judgement. See my reply to the other post above. [1] Philosophy is the discipline that specialises in the problem of rational analysis of value judgements. A good way to agree on which rights and valuable benefits to use is to discuss them philosophically. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14007546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14007546