Karl Popper's "Science as Falsification"

Originally posted by RJHinds
I thought that was German for master.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Damn your logic! 😀

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
No its Russian for Mr.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie

Is the theory of evolution falsifiable?

Originally posted by RJHinds
Okay, i'll take your word for it. I was in Germany about 30 something years ago and i thought I remembered a word like that in German. My mistake. Hess also reminds me of a German. Maybe, Rudolf Hess.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Yes, of course.

Here's a brief discussion on the topic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution#Unfalsifiability

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Yes, the way i view it is in terms of a chess variation. We may have two or three plausible moves. We can subject them to analysis and by applying logic discern which may be beneficial or detrimental. If one of the variations leads to us suffering detriment then in Popperian terms we have falsified our theory and we are free to treat our other var ...[text shortened]... , not because they are true or untrue but because there is no real way to test them empirically.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Here is one that is more to the point:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

“I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again 'I know that that’s a tree', pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: 'This fellow isn’t insane. We are only doing philosophy.’”

― Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty

Just a few rough thoughts—

Falsificationism replaces verificationism, in part because of the “black swan” problem (which Popper recognized). Therefore, empirical observations—no matter how many in agreement—are not taken to verify the hypothesis in question (since it would only take one new observation to refute/defeat/falsify it) but as having failed to falsify it to a sufficient degree of probability. Of course this means that scientific inquiry (like any inductive/abductive logic)* cannot provide “certain proof”, but always remains somewhat open to further inquiry, no matter how vanishingly small the probability of error becomes. This is why a theory must rest on a body of repeated observation and testing—repeated challenging of the theory. (And this is also why a scientific theory is not “just a theory”, like “just my opinion” or “just a hypothesis”.)

Meanwhile, however, we have enough confidence to send space probes to far reaches of the solar system, to microwave our sandwiches, to use GPS to navigate our roads trips, to take medications when ill—etc., etc., etc.. [For example, my wife had a heart attack last year. She is permanently on a diet tested by medical science—not philosophy or religion. And yet, human diets are still being tested; there is no certainty.]

People sometimes use the word verify, in part, I think because the language of falsification (or disconfirmation) is just a bit more cumbersome. Nevertheless, I recall my first econometrics professor reminding us almost daily that we never prove (verify) the null hypothesis, but only fail to disprove (fail to verify/confirm) it to an acceptable level of confidence (as I recall—so many years since I did any of that!—0.90 was considered fairly low, though minimally acceptable, all things considered). And if anyone failed to heed his words—fail (the project, not the course: if remediation was made—the project re-submitted with correction— and the mistake not repeated).

So, if a hypothesis is in principle falsifiable—even if, perhaps, no plausible test has yet been designed—it is in the realm of valid empirical (scientific) inquiry. If not, then not. (Assuming, obviously, that the hypothesis is formulated in a coherent way.)* I cannot imagine in what way evolution would not be falsifiable.



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* I think this is the logical conundrum: deductive logic, of itself, tests only coherency (validity), not empirical truth—one can be certain of the result (e.g., if p, then q:p:therefore q) only by reference to empirical reality. Inductive/abductive logic draw conclusions from observations, but can never be sealed with certainty.

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“I act with complete certainty. But this certainty is my own.”

― Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty

“What stands fast does so, not because it is intrinsically obvious or convincing; it is rather held fast by what lies around it.”

― Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty

“Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and a heretic”

― Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty

Originally posted by C Hess
You're thinking of the word meister, and no, I'm not from Germany. You seriously can't see the play on words in my username, for a chess site? Chess? C Hess? Seriously? I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, given your posting history. 🙄

Originally posted by vistesd
I cannot imagine in what way evolution would not be falsifiable.

Originally posted by RJHinds
I can. One can not test and observe something that might have happen millions of years ago when there is not even solid proof that there were millions of years ago. So if those conjectures of what might have happened millions of years ago can't be tested or observed, then how could it be falsified, since it is just a belief?

So the hypothesis that all t ...[text shortened]... ts, so that these life forms reproduce only after there own kind, because they are both beliefs.

Originally posted by vistesd
So one cannot observe evidence of past events, such as geological sedimentation—or, statements on today’s news about what happened last Thursday—and test that against various competing claims?

YouTube

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztmvtKLuR7I&feature=youtu.be

Is the theory of evolution falsifiable?

Originally posted by sonhouse
Evolution can positively be falsified. Show me a 400 million year old parakeet fossil and evolution goes out the window. So far that hasn't happened. Till then, evolution is true and it doesn't matter how many YEC idiots say otherwise, they are marginalized, and getting more and more in the margins and fringes of society. Where they belong. Each century tha ...[text shortened]... hem. A few hundred more years and there will be no more YEC's so have fun while you still exist.