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Nothing in that explanation is incompatible with the view that science is a "search for truth", at least taken in a suitably weak sense that does not claim to h

by mjn 14y ago

Nothing in that explanation is incompatible with the view that science is a "search for truth", at least taken in a suitably weak sense that does not claim to have "found" it. Falsificationism is simply a methodology, not any kind of end goal. The whole point of following such a methodology is to come up with theories that are in some way "better"; the thing we actually want is the positive content of the theories, which can be used as models, make predictions, etc. If we weren't interested in the positive content of theories at all, there would be no point in trying to falsify them. That said, I think Popperian falsificationism is rather questionable as a philosophy of science, once you prod at it more than a little.

lutusp 14y ago
> Nothing in that explanation is incompatible with the view that science is a "search for truth". Of course it's incompatible. If there is no such thing as truth in science, that eliminates truth as a goal. And there is no such thing as truth in science. > Falsificationism is simply a methodology for finding where theories are non-truthy and amending them accordingly. No, this is not so. Falsification doesn't cut away those parts of theories that aren't representative of absolute truth, it cuts away the theories in their entirety. Astrology wasn't modified to become astronomy, instead astrology was demonstrated to be false and abandoned. The ether theory wasn't "amended" to become relativity, it was falsified in its entirety and abandoned. Falsifiability is not an editor's red pencil, it is a test against reality, and if the test fails, the idea is abandoned. > ... the whole point of falsifying theories is that we don't want false theories, but theories that are... less false. No. This isn't what falsifiability means. Falsifiability means that our ideas must be testable against reality, and only those ideas that survive the test remain standing ... to be tested again, later on, with new evidence. But we never declare a theory proven, beyond doubt (which would support your apparent notion about science).
- mjn 14y ago
  > Of course it's incompatible. If there is no such thing as truth in science, that eliminates truth as a goal. You're confusing epistemology and ontology here. There are things in the world which are physically true or false. That you cannot conclusively prove a particular proposition is true is an epistemological/methodological issue which is not incompatible with the existence of external reality, or the idea that the purpose of our methodologies is to more accurately model said external reality. And yes, one way we do that is by incrementally pruning theories; and another way we do it is by replacing entire theories. I've read Kuhn, so I don't have any conception of science as an incremental ratchet or anything. Put differently, there is an objective reality, and science is a method for investigating it. The fact that you can't declare victory, having arrived at a flawless transparent understanding of the objective reality, is not a good argument against either the existence, or the claim that the purpose of science is to attempt to model it. Without that basis science makes no sense in the first place, and you're at social constructivism.
  - lutusp 14y ago
    EDIT: this thread, and the downvotes against this specific post, only demonstrate the futility of trying to debate with philosophers. For a philosopher, everything simultaneously is, and is not, science. For a scientist, Creationism is not science and doesn't belong in the classroom. Take your pick. ------------------------------------------------- > There are things in the world which are physically true or false. We're not discussing the world. We're discussing science. > Put differently, there is an objective reality, and science is a method for investigating it. (a) False as stated. (b) You skipped the part where we address the role of truth. > The fact that you can't declare victory ... Meaning discover absolute truth? That's not science's criterion for victory. > ... or the claim that the purpose of science is to attempt to model it [ "it" apparently meaning "arrive at a flawless transparent understanding of the objective reality" ]. That is not science's purpose. That's religion's purpose. Science has realistic goals, religion doesn't. > Without that basis science makes no sense in the first place ... Maybe not to you, but to a scientist, it makes perfect sense. This conversation reminds me why Richard Feynman disliked philosophers so much. Philosophical debates can produce anything except a working vaccine.
    - pharrington 14y ago
      Eh, it seems more that it's just hard for some people to know when to stop trying to apply philosophy to something. I find myself often engaging in a whole lot of philosophic thought, but I know better than to think that has any bearing on science. Derails.
    - politician 14y ago
      Fascinating. How do philosophers and scientists react to Godel's incompleteness theorem w.r.t. falsification? To me, at least, it seems to suggest that falsification is a flashlight that for whatever reason fails to illuminate certain otherwise possible paths. (I understand that the theorem applies in the context of "consistent" formal systems, and that falsification is about the process of refining models of systems to be more consistent. It's interesting that the emergent properties of the pursuit of falsification bring about a paradoxical system in the limit.)
- nessus42 14y ago
  > If there is no such thing as truth in science, that eliminates truth as a goal. And there is no such thing as truth in science. This is nonsense. I graduated from MIT and I and all my classmates would be shocked to learn that science is not about truth. And furthermore, stating such nonsense is just fodder for critics of science. After all, why worry about climate change if climate change theories don't represent the truth? If it's not true that climate change will likely cause the deaths of many millions of people, then we need not worry. Your notion of truth is too highly constrained. Science makes models, which are approximations of reality, but accurate approximations are a form of truth. Using models, we build such things as TVs and airplanes and vaccines that work. Things that work are a form of truth.
  - defrost 14y ago
    Climb down from your rocking pony of mock outrage MIT boy. He's talking Truth with a Kappa T, as in Newtons Laws were true but not True and as in Einstein's modifications were truer but we still don't Know if they are True. You seem easily shocked.
    - nessus42 14y ago
      That notion of truth is a straw man.
  - lutusp 14y ago
    > I graduated from MIT and I and all my classmates would be shocked to learn that science is not about truth. I think all your classmates will be shocked and dismayed to hear what you're claiming in their name. My statement about the relation of science and truth is hardly controversial, and it is not a meaningful debate topic among the educated. Philosopher David Hume famously said, "No amount of observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion." Now I ask that you read the above quotation carefully and repeatedly until it sinks in. It lies at the heart of modern scientific thinking and its frequency of quotation reflects its importance to the issue of scientific truth. 1. All scientific theories must be falsifiable by new evidence. This is a requirement for all legitimate science, and this key scientific idea is written into law. One example: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mclean-v-arkansas.html http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mclean-v-arkansas.html 2. By definition, truths cannot be falsified. 3. Therefore science cannot be a source of truth. Which part of the above didn't you understand? > Your notion of truth is too highly constrained. This is not my notion, it is how science is defined -- see above. > ... but accurate approximations are a form of truth. Ah. Now I see the problem. You don't understand what "truth" means. Truth is not an approximation, accurate or otherwise -- it is a superlative statement of fact. > Things that work are a form of truth. Confirmed -- you're using a private definition of "truth". People used willow bark to cure headaches for thousands of years before they had any idea why it worked. Is that truth? Yes, according to you. Let's say I'm a quack doctor and I believe I have a cure for the common cold. My "cure", my "truth", is that I shake a dried gourd over the cold sufferer until he gets better. My "cure" always works -- it might take several days, but it's perfectly reliable -- it's a "truth". Should I get a Nobel prize for my discovery, my "truth" about the common cold? Or should I be drummed out of the medical profession? > I graduated from MIT and ... Self-respecting college graduates know better than to try to offer their academic status as an argument in support of their views. It's like saying, "I can't be responsible for this car wreck -- I have a driver's license!" A college degree is as much a licence to be articulately wrong as articulately right.

by mjn 14y ago

lutusp 14y ago

> Nothing in that explanation is incompatible with the view that science is a "search for truth". Of course it's incompatible. If there is no such thing as truth in science, that eliminates truth as a goal. And there is no such thing as truth in science. > Falsificationism is simply a methodology for finding where theories are non-truthy and amending them accordingly. No, this is not so. Falsification doesn't cut away those parts of theories that aren't representative of absolute truth, it cuts away the theories in their entirety. Astrology wasn't modified to become astronomy, instead astrology was demonstrated to be false and abandoned. The ether theory wasn't "amended" to become relativity, it was falsified in its entirety and abandoned. Falsifiability is not an editor's red pencil, it is a test against reality, and if the test fails, the idea is abandoned. > ... the whole point of falsifying theories is that we don't want false theories, but theories that are... less false. No. This isn't what falsifiability means. Falsifiability means that our ideas must be testable against reality, and only those ideas that survive the test remain standing ... to be tested again, later on, with new evidence. But we never declare a theory proven, beyond doubt (which would support your apparent notion about science).

mjn 14y ago
> Of course it's incompatible. If there is no such thing as truth in science, that eliminates truth as a goal. You're confusing epistemology and ontology here. There are things in the world which are physically true or false. That you cannot conclusively prove a particular proposition is true is an epistemological/methodological issue which is not incompatible with the existence of external reality, or the idea that the purpose of our methodologies is to more accurately model said external reality. And yes, one way we do that is by incrementally pruning theories; and another way we do it is by replacing entire theories. I've read Kuhn, so I don't have any conception of science as an incremental ratchet or anything. Put differently, there is an objective reality, and science is a method for investigating it. The fact that you can't declare victory, having arrived at a flawless transparent understanding of the objective reality, is not a good argument against either the existence, or the claim that the purpose of science is to attempt to model it. Without that basis science makes no sense in the first place, and you're at social constructivism.
- lutusp 14y ago
  EDIT: this thread, and the downvotes against this specific post, only demonstrate the futility of trying to debate with philosophers. For a philosopher, everything simultaneously is, and is not, science. For a scientist, Creationism is not science and doesn't belong in the classroom. Take your pick. ------------------------------------------------- > There are things in the world which are physically true or false. We're not discussing the world. We're discussing science. > Put differently, there is an objective reality, and science is a method for investigating it. (a) False as stated. (b) You skipped the part where we address the role of truth. > The fact that you can't declare victory ... Meaning discover absolute truth? That's not science's criterion for victory. > ... or the claim that the purpose of science is to attempt to model it [ "it" apparently meaning "arrive at a flawless transparent understanding of the objective reality" ]. That is not science's purpose. That's religion's purpose. Science has realistic goals, religion doesn't. > Without that basis science makes no sense in the first place ... Maybe not to you, but to a scientist, it makes perfect sense. This conversation reminds me why Richard Feynman disliked philosophers so much. Philosophical debates can produce anything except a working vaccine.
  - pharrington 14y ago
    Eh, it seems more that it's just hard for some people to know when to stop trying to apply philosophy to something. I find myself often engaging in a whole lot of philosophic thought, but I know better than to think that has any bearing on science. Derails.
  - politician 14y ago
    Fascinating. How do philosophers and scientists react to Godel's incompleteness theorem w.r.t. falsification? To me, at least, it seems to suggest that falsification is a flashlight that for whatever reason fails to illuminate certain otherwise possible paths. (I understand that the theorem applies in the context of "consistent" formal systems, and that falsification is about the process of refining models of systems to be more consistent. It's interesting that the emergent properties of the pursuit of falsification bring about a paradoxical system in the limit.)
nessus42 14y ago
> If there is no such thing as truth in science, that eliminates truth as a goal. And there is no such thing as truth in science. This is nonsense. I graduated from MIT and I and all my classmates would be shocked to learn that science is not about truth. And furthermore, stating such nonsense is just fodder for critics of science. After all, why worry about climate change if climate change theories don't represent the truth? If it's not true that climate change will likely cause the deaths of many millions of people, then we need not worry. Your notion of truth is too highly constrained. Science makes models, which are approximations of reality, but accurate approximations are a form of truth. Using models, we build such things as TVs and airplanes and vaccines that work. Things that work are a form of truth.
- defrost 14y ago
  Climb down from your rocking pony of mock outrage MIT boy. He's talking Truth with a Kappa T, as in Newtons Laws were true but not True and as in Einstein's modifications were truer but we still don't Know if they are True. You seem easily shocked.
  - nessus42 14y ago
    That notion of truth is a straw man.
- lutusp 14y ago
  > I graduated from MIT and I and all my classmates would be shocked to learn that science is not about truth. I think all your classmates will be shocked and dismayed to hear what you're claiming in their name. My statement about the relation of science and truth is hardly controversial, and it is not a meaningful debate topic among the educated. Philosopher David Hume famously said, "No amount of observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion." Now I ask that you read the above quotation carefully and repeatedly until it sinks in. It lies at the heart of modern scientific thinking and its frequency of quotation reflects its importance to the issue of scientific truth. 1. All scientific theories must be falsifiable by new evidence. This is a requirement for all legitimate science, and this key scientific idea is written into law. One example: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mclean-v-arkansas.html http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mclean-v-arkansas.html 2. By definition, truths cannot be falsified. 3. Therefore science cannot be a source of truth. Which part of the above didn't you understand? > Your notion of truth is too highly constrained. This is not my notion, it is how science is defined -- see above. > ... but accurate approximations are a form of truth. Ah. Now I see the problem. You don't understand what "truth" means. Truth is not an approximation, accurate or otherwise -- it is a superlative statement of fact. > Things that work are a form of truth. Confirmed -- you're using a private definition of "truth". People used willow bark to cure headaches for thousands of years before they had any idea why it worked. Is that truth? Yes, according to you. Let's say I'm a quack doctor and I believe I have a cure for the common cold. My "cure", my "truth", is that I shake a dried gourd over the cold sufferer until he gets better. My "cure" always works -- it might take several days, but it's perfectly reliable -- it's a "truth". Should I get a Nobel prize for my discovery, my "truth" about the common cold? Or should I be drummed out of the medical profession? > I graduated from MIT and ... Self-respecting college graduates know better than to try to offer their academic status as an argument in support of their views. It's like saying, "I can't be responsible for this car wreck -- I have a driver's license!" A college degree is as much a licence to be articulately wrong as articulately right.