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> "Science is still the best way of determining true statements" Science is still the best way to refute false statements.
by ExpiredLink 13y ago
> "Science is still the best way of determining true statements"
Science is still the best way to refute false statements.
- sillysaurus2 13y ago... mathematically-testable false statements. Most hypotheses in life aren't, such as "If I become a poet, then I'll be happy." That seems like kind of an absurd example, but thinking along those lines reveals how startlingly few hypotheses fall within the domain of science.
- DerpDerpDerp 13y agoI... isn't this a rather testable hypothesis? It just would be a very time consuming experiment to run, and the cost of being wrong would be high, but I don't see how it isn't possible to get empirical results about if being a poet would, in fact, make you happy.
- alexlawford 13y agoIt would be easy enough to show that becoming a poet didn't make someone happy. But if they became a poet, and then became happy? Surely its pretty obvious that the connection wouldn't be testable in the slightest.
- sillysaurus2 13y agoActually, the success of science is its ability to predict what will occur in a wide variety of situations. Otherwise science wouldn't have been such a big deal. If it were possible to specify how much happiness is enough, and how much happiness isn't, precisely, then it would be science. That's the only way to make generalizations from the results. But the threshold of happiness is imprecise, so therefore it's not science.