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Isn’t it also incredibly easy to prove Leonardo’s tree rule just by cutting down a few?
by heyoni 3y ago
Isn’t it also incredibly easy to prove Leonardo’s tree rule just by cutting down a few?
- bgirard 3y agoYou can't prove something by example, you can only show that the pattern holds for the examples that you've checked.
- hermanradtke 3y agoNow do the same with dynamic types and unit tests.
- crazygringo 3y agoBiology isn't mathematics. Yes, in math you can't prove things by example. But in biology that's the only way you form knowledge. Biology doesn't have axioms. In biology, proof is by induction. However philosophically unsatisfying that may be.
- spott 3y agoAlternatively, you don’t “prove” things in biology, you just provide evidence for them. Proof implies a level of certainty that doesn’t exist in biology.
- anonacct37 3y agoIn fact you don't prove anything in science. You merely fail to disprove something.
- epgui 3y agoin the “natural sciences”
- _ZeD_ 3y agoDo we have innatural ones?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cfiggers 3y agoIs computer science a science?
- thaumasiotes 3y agoOf course not. It's a branch of mathematics. Always has been.
- artemonster 3y ago„A branch“ - so we are back to trees then?
- epgui 3y agoMathematics and computer science are both in the category of formal science.
- epgui 3y agoYes, it’s a formal science.
- epgui 3y agoThe other category of science is called formal science.
- mistercheph 3y agoIs proving something internal to a system of ad-hoc rules that cannot (to the same standard of proof) be proven to have any correspondance with the natural world really proving something? Sincere question.
- andrewflnr 3y agoOn the other hand, "trees" are polyphyletic, among other aspects of their broad diversity. So even if you can generalize across a species, generalizing across all trees from a handful of examples is likely to lead you astray.
- saalweachter 3y agoOn the gripping hand, trees are polyphyletic because the constraints of physics and biology push in a certain direction regardless of starting point; you can imagine there is some underlying mathematical rule to this abstract "tree" even if it isn't realized in all examples.
- andrewflnr 3y agoYou can imagine, sure, but we were talking about proof.
- heyoni 3y agoYea I misspoke. (typed)
- otikik 3y agoI think that's correct for some assertions. When a statement is "this is always true", then a counterexample is all it takes to disprove it. On the other hand, if the statement is "this is not always true" then an example of it happening is as you said - the example does not counter anything.