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Falsifiability is critical for engineering, but not all science is for engineering. The further you get from engineering, the fuzzier the line between science a

Falsifiability is critical for engineering, but not all science is for engineering. The further you get from engineering, the fuzzier the line between science and non science. We try to apply the tools of science to things like astrophysics and paleontology, but they're practically never going to have engineering consequences. That's fine. It's great that we want to know stuff just because we like knowing -- even if "knowing" sometimes gets hard to define. Falsifiability is a great tool for being able to say some things don't work. But it's important not to let it limit curiosity.

croes 3y ago
Without falsifiability it's belief not science. How can a hypothesis become a theory if it can't fail?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
foolswisdom 3y ago
If you can't explain how the statement could be falsified, at least in principle (although it may be not practical to do so), then you are admitting that reality will always be the exact same regardless of whether your hypothesis is true. And in that case, it's really not useful or meaningful for any sort of reasoning at all. A concept which will in no way ever make a difference, is meaningless.
- karencarits 3y ago
  But it can be hard to know whether a concept will make a difference in the future. String theory may for example provide some testable hypotheses at some point. Theory building is important and original thoughts may have unpredicted consequences some way down the road
- kybernetikos 3y ago
  MWI of quantum physics is most likely unfalsifiable. But if I believe that there are other versions of me that will definitely win the lottery if I am the sort of person to enter it in particular circumstances then that may well change my behaviour. I would argue that occams razor is unfalsifiable but is still a great principle.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > I would argue that occams razor is unfalsifiable but is still a great principle. Occam's razor is provable, in the sense it's a heuristic based on probability. Out of the two alternative hypotheses explaining the same observations to the same degree, the simpler one is more likely to be true.
    - BellsOnSunday 3y ago
      More likely but not certain. People who rely on this rhetorically tend to ignore it isn't a slam dunk.
    - ukj 3y ago
      Hickam's dictum is also provable. In the domains where simplicity prevails Occam's razor is more probable. In domains where complexity prevails Hickam's dictum is more probable.
      - TeMPOraL 3y ago
        Haven't heard of Hickam's dictum before, thanks! I see how it makes sense, given it comes from medicine - the very field dedicated to literally the single most complex system we know of: the human body. But I don't see it as an opposite to Occam's razor - rather, a missing lower bound. That is, I see Hickam's dictum as a reminder that some hypotheses may be too simple. My guess at how one would formalize this is, when you're comparing hypotheses explaining something in a given domain (such as "behavior of things being thrown", or "health of a human body"), there is a level of complexity inherent to the domain. A hypothesis that's so simple as to fall below that level is too simple - it doesn't have enough bits to express what's happening within the domain. The further below the complexity threshold it is, the more likely it is to be falsified by new evidence. In contrast, hypotheses above the domain complexity level are all capable of explaining the domain fully; however, the more complex a hypothesis, the more likely it is to be at least partially wrong. This gives us the following takes: - Occam's razor: for hypotheses above the domain complexity threshold, the least complex one is most likely to be true. - Hickam's dictum: your hypothesis is way below the domain complexity threshold - which you didn't notice, because you don't appreciate how complex the domain is in the first place. Reconciliation: - The closer a hypothesis is to the domain complexity level, the more likely it is to correctly explain new evidence. The best hypothesis matches the complexity of the domain. Above it, hypotheses gain superfluous parts, which are either redundant (unlikely), or wrong (very likely). Below it, hypotheses are always wrong - they're too simple to account for all possible predictions, so new evidence will eventually falsify them. The tricky part is - even though we both postulate hypotheses and define their domain, we tend to hand-wave the latter a lot, so in some cases (like medicine) we may not realize that our hypotheses are too simple.
- ukj 3y ago
  In asking a statement to be falsified (in principle) you are assuming it to be true (in principle). Is is true? What makes it true? >A concept which will in no way ever make a difference, is meaningless. So what would falsify this statement? How would you convince yourself that you are wrong?

croes 3y ago

Without falsifiability it's belief not science. How can a hypothesis become a theory if it can't fail?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

foolswisdom 3y ago

If you can't explain how the statement could be falsified, at least in principle (although it may be not practical to do so), then you are admitting that reality will always be the exact same regardless of whether your hypothesis is true. And in that case, it's really not useful or meaningful for any sort of reasoning at all. A concept which will in no way ever make a difference, is meaningless.

karencarits 3y ago
But it can be hard to know whether a concept will make a difference in the future. String theory may for example provide some testable hypotheses at some point. Theory building is important and original thoughts may have unpredicted consequences some way down the road
kybernetikos 3y ago
MWI of quantum physics is most likely unfalsifiable. But if I believe that there are other versions of me that will definitely win the lottery if I am the sort of person to enter it in particular circumstances then that may well change my behaviour. I would argue that occams razor is unfalsifiable but is still a great principle.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > I would argue that occams razor is unfalsifiable but is still a great principle. Occam's razor is provable, in the sense it's a heuristic based on probability. Out of the two alternative hypotheses explaining the same observations to the same degree, the simpler one is more likely to be true.
  - BellsOnSunday 3y ago
    More likely but not certain. People who rely on this rhetorically tend to ignore it isn't a slam dunk.
  - ukj 3y ago
    Hickam's dictum is also provable. In the domains where simplicity prevails Occam's razor is more probable. In domains where complexity prevails Hickam's dictum is more probable.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      Haven't heard of Hickam's dictum before, thanks! I see how it makes sense, given it comes from medicine - the very field dedicated to literally the single most complex system we know of: the human body. But I don't see it as an opposite to Occam's razor - rather, a missing lower bound. That is, I see Hickam's dictum as a reminder that some hypotheses may be too simple. My guess at how one would formalize this is, when you're comparing hypotheses explaining something in a given domain (such as "behavior of things being thrown", or "health of a human body"), there is a level of complexity inherent to the domain. A hypothesis that's so simple as to fall below that level is too simple - it doesn't have enough bits to express what's happening within the domain. The further below the complexity threshold it is, the more likely it is to be falsified by new evidence. In contrast, hypotheses above the domain complexity level are all capable of explaining the domain fully; however, the more complex a hypothesis, the more likely it is to be at least partially wrong. This gives us the following takes: - Occam's razor: for hypotheses above the domain complexity threshold, the least complex one is most likely to be true. - Hickam's dictum: your hypothesis is way below the domain complexity threshold - which you didn't notice, because you don't appreciate how complex the domain is in the first place. Reconciliation: - The closer a hypothesis is to the domain complexity level, the more likely it is to correctly explain new evidence. The best hypothesis matches the complexity of the domain. Above it, hypotheses gain superfluous parts, which are either redundant (unlikely), or wrong (very likely). Below it, hypotheses are always wrong - they're too simple to account for all possible predictions, so new evidence will eventually falsify them. The tricky part is - even though we both postulate hypotheses and define their domain, we tend to hand-wave the latter a lot, so in some cases (like medicine) we may not realize that our hypotheses are too simple.
ukj 3y ago
In asking a statement to be falsified (in principle) you are assuming it to be true (in principle). Is is true? What makes it true? >A concept which will in no way ever make a difference, is meaningless. So what would falsify this statement? How would you convince yourself that you are wrong?