3 ms·

You can't prove a theory wrong in science either. All you can do is to collect evidence that pushes you in one direction or the other.

bovine3dom 9y ago
No, you can prove things wrong. In fact, a lot of science is in making sure that your claims are falsifiable. E.g, "the moon is made of cheese". cf. Bertrand Russell's teapot.
- notfed 9y ago
  If this is true then you can also prove things right: "the Moon is not made of cheese".
- savanaly 9y ago
  We can't prove that wrong. We can just say it's almost certainly wrong given the body of evidence against it. It's distinctly possible that every single measurement and observation of the moon that observed it to not be made of cheese was mistaken for one reason or another, however.
  - bovine3dom 9y ago
    Ok, but then you're so far into pedantics that I'd suggest that you can't mathematically prove anything either, because you're using your brain to do so, which might be suffering from some flaw that stops you from realising that actually 1+1=3.
    - mistercow 9y ago
      That is only as pedantic as it is pedantic to say that science can't prove things right. There is no fundamental quality that makes a statement "positive" or "negative", so "proving X wrong" is always "proving ⌐X right". It's possible to be very precise about what we mean when we talk about evidence and logic, so coming up with these wishy-washy principles like "science can only prove things wrong; oh, you know what I mean" just confuses things. As for applying that to math, yes that's true to some extent. And on rare occasion, mathematical proofs are found to have flaws in them years after they have become commonly accepted. I think there's an important distinction to be made, though, between the certainty of deductive reasoning, and the uncertainty of deductive reasoning as interpreted by humans.

3 ms·

You can't prove a theory wrong in science either. All you can do is to collect evidence that pushes you in one direction or the other.

by mistercow 9y ago

bovine3dom 9y ago
No, you can prove things wrong. In fact, a lot of science is in making sure that your claims are falsifiable. E.g, "the moon is made of cheese". cf. Bertrand Russell's teapot.
- notfed 9y ago
  If this is true then you can also prove things right: "the Moon is not made of cheese".
- savanaly 9y ago
  We can't prove that wrong. We can just say it's almost certainly wrong given the body of evidence against it. It's distinctly possible that every single measurement and observation of the moon that observed it to not be made of cheese was mistaken for one reason or another, however.
  - bovine3dom 9y ago
    Ok, but then you're so far into pedantics that I'd suggest that you can't mathematically prove anything either, because you're using your brain to do so, which might be suffering from some flaw that stops you from realising that actually 1+1=3.
    - mistercow 9y ago
      That is only as pedantic as it is pedantic to say that science can't prove things right. There is no fundamental quality that makes a statement "positive" or "negative", so "proving X wrong" is always "proving ⌐X right". It's possible to be very precise about what we mean when we talk about evidence and logic, so coming up with these wishy-washy principles like "science can only prove things wrong; oh, you know what I mean" just confuses things. As for applying that to math, yes that's true to some extent. And on rare occasion, mathematical proofs are found to have flaws in them years after they have become commonly accepted. I think there's an important distinction to be made, though, between the certainty of deductive reasoning, and the uncertainty of deductive reasoning as interpreted by humans.