Firstly, I haven't said anything about scientific validity so I don't know why you're saying "Falsifiability is not a good criterion for validity.", yeah I agree but to quote you "This has no relevance to anything I said". Second, falsifiability does resolve the problem of induction, in that if you can't falsify an idea then you can't ever know if it's wrong and any scientific result becomes that much less reliable. A hypothesis that can't be proven wrong isn't very Useful is it (Capitalised because Useful is another scientific criteria) Of all the underlying principles that inform the scientific method, falsifiability is one the most important because of this, but a theory that can't be falsified is probably going to fail to meet other criteria too.

The fact that you can come up with a hypothesis that is complete nonsense but can be falsified doesn't make falsifiability any less useful. It's not a stand-alone criteria.


Noted.

I wrote the reply on validity in response to Neel, who brought up the term. Albeit in quotation marks, so he didn't necessarily mean scientific validity, but I responded as if he did.

I agree that falsifying theories make them more reliable, but that is not really the issue. The issue is that falsifability isn't the end-all of science or a completely necessary criterion.

If I sit with other researchers and discuss potential ways of modelling or understanding a subject, I'm doing science. If I collect data to further our understanding, I'm doing science. If we use those data to make conjecture, we're doing science. If we do a literary study on a subject we're doing science. If we do a quantitative study to broaden our understanding of a subject, we're doing science. If we build a simulation to test a model or potential variables, we're doing science. If we do observations to see if our variables seem valid, we're doing science.

None of those things are based on falsifiability, most of them are not even empirical. They're all still important parts of the scientific progress.

And in some cases empirical studies are less useful than other approaches. In pain research for example, phenomenology (basically asking people how things are) generates more useful data than measuring bodily responses, but it is impossible to falsify phenomenological method. In other cases falsifying the theory is not yet a possibility, that doesn't make it unscientific. Biology, in its infancy, was very difficult to test in experiment and in many cases still is. It's still was and is one of the most useful fields in science.

I really don't know if we're even disagreeing. I never said that falsifiabiility is the end-all of science or a completely necessary criterion", I said that a hypothesis cannot graduate to the level of 'theory' without being falsifiable. I did ask earlier ITT if we are using the word 'theory' in the same way.

Usually the criterion for theory is "repeatedly tested", not necessarily "repeatedly falsified". Remember that empirical method isn't always possible. The most common alternative here would be observation and supporting evidence.

And there are in-betweens. String theory, as an example, contain many elements that are falsifiable but those tests can't tell us if the universe is made of strings. Then you have hypotheses that are hypothetically falsifiable, which are "merely" awaiting the technology or advances that makes the experiments possible, but they're so heavily supported by evidence that it's still unproblematic to call them theories. And then you have other theories that are based on elements that are solidly falsified, but which ultimately are based on standing on the shoulders of those theories to jump to the final conclusion - cosmology and astrophysics contain a fair bit of those (as far as I know).

And your view does have some other issues. I have no issue declaring evolutionary biology a scientific discipline, but much of it is not falsifiable. Indeed, inductive reasoning is a big part of it (meaning you look for supporting evidence / lack of evidence instead of experimental tests to falsify your hypothesis). That doesn't mean it lacks rigor or is a weak field. Its contributions to science have been close to invaluable.

And maybe most importantly on all. Any scientific theory, law or hypothesis can be reduced to components where some are not falsifiable. Nothing survives philosophical skepticism.

I should point out that I'm aware that there are many different scientific standards, but wouldn't you agree that the vast majority of scientists adhere to a 'true' version of Philosophical Naturalism, and by that I mean that although some try to include a supernatural element, most don't. And, interestingly, the number of theist scientists isn't consistent across the sciences. The more a science explains our origins and how things work, such as Physics, Geology and Biology, the fewer theists there are, and theist scientists are in a minority to start with.

My view is that Science that adheres to a hard naturalism is the most effective precisely because of it's limits. The supernatural can't be falsified, so what use are conclusions that include a supernatural element? Surely, and now I am introducing into my argument the question of scientific validity, what use is a conclusion that can't easily be demonstrated to correspond to what we observe, as something like Gravity or ToE can?



Confused here. If something has actually been falsified, then it's wrong and will never be accepted as a theory. Falsifiability is identifying a way that could falsify something, not actually doing it.



ToE meets all the criteria AND has ample evidence to support it. That's why it's called a theory and not a hypothesis. Which parts of it are not falsifiable? The first time you find any fossil in a place it shouldn't be and in a way that can't be explained consistent with ToE, you totally falsified ToE.

And regarding 'Philosophical skepticism', I haven't claimed that science can provide absolute truths.

Well, if you want to claim naturalism you certainly can. Naturalism is an assumption though and not provable, nor falsifiable. According to you that makes it unscientific.

Personally I hold that naturalism is simply unnecessary. Sure you can tip-toe around it and claim it holds merit as methodology and method, but the fact of the matter is that it isn't needed. Empiricism covers all the bases of naturalism with none of the baggage.

That's my bad, English is not my native language so I used the term wrongly. I meant to say something ala passing falsification.


That's not true though. ToE is often adjusted both in mechanisms and in timelines, indeed how it looks today is very different to how it looked 50 years ago. When you are bombastic in your claims like you are, that can come of as a weakness. But it isn't. It's a solid theory that often needs to be re-worked because it is partially inductive, meaning it has to be revised when new evidence is presented. Which is a healthy and sound way of going about things.

And I didn't talk about "absolute truths". I said you can reduce them to pieces which can't be falsified.

A suggested "study" I can give you (and anyone else interested) is to read about the Raven paradox, which very elegantly shows the limitations of both inductive reasoning and falsifiability in one small example.

It's not an assumption, it's a paradigm, no different in that respect to 'god exists'. Science is simply one of many of the epistemic standards that are used for acquiring and understanding knowledge, and within science itself there are different standards by which that is done.

Can we falsify the Naturalistic paradigm? No we can't, but that's ok because it's just a container for scientific theories, and it's the theories themselves that need to be falsifiable, they need to play by the rules, not the paradigm itself.


Totally disagree. It's my view that we didn't start to make true progress in understanding what we observe until we engaged the Naturalistic paradigm through Methodological Naturalism. Once we moved from the 'god' paradigm, which fails most scientific criteria and is mostly Useless for explaining anything, we started to become more knowledgeable.

'Corrective' is another scientific criterion, so ToE having been partially corrected doesn't make it non-scientific, it's exactly the opposite, it's just another reason why it's solid science. One of the many reasons that the god paradigm isn't scientific is that it's not corrective. How would you correct the god paradigm?

I'm just pointing out that I am healthily skeptical, in fact, I lean towards deep skepticism as my general epistemic outlook.

Already aware of it thanks. I think you're making some incorrect assumptions about my knowledge of Epistemology. It's a good example to mention but all it demonstrates is the limitations of both [simple] inductive reasoning and falsifiability when performed from an armchair, but ToE wasn't devised from an armchair, or in a void, hence my constant mention of also requiring evidence (and there is a very large body of evidence to support ToE) to support a hypothesis.

If, however, ToE wasn't falsifiable, among other things, then it couldn't be considered a reliable explanation and no matter how much evidence was offered, it wouldn't be called a theory.

If you are unwilling to admit that naturalism is an assumption, I don't think we have anything to talk about in that regard. Because that's all it is.

And? I can say we didn't make huge progress in civilization before we invented the Cuneiform alphabet. Doesn't mean it's a good idea to use it today.

Large swaths of ToE is inductive and not falsifiable. How most current species evolved is not falsifiable, it's induced from fossil records and supporting evidence in biology. Here is one example: You can't falsify how whales evolved. It's history. Maybe in a million year life-span you'll be able to falsify how they evolve, but that's something else entirely.

So according to you ToE is not scientific and not a theory.

This is simply the price for being bombastic and dealing in absolutes. If you're not willing to pay it, you're not being honest.

I did?

No, Beaucoupfish did. Sorry

I did?

Assumption, paradigm, you're focusing on what to call it and not the job it's doing. By limiting explanations to only those that are 'natural', and by ruling out the supernatural, PN determines what questions are relevant and what answers meaningful in exactly the same way that starting with the paradigm that there is a god does. Dismissing it as an assumption is again, useless, I could do that with anything. God? Pfft, an assumption.

Yes you could say that, and even if true it wouldn't change that applying a naturalistic paradigm has caused a acceleration in the acquisition and understanding of knowledge unparalleled in human history. It took tens of thousands of years to go from hunter-gathering to horse-drawn carts, and then in only a couple of centuries we went from horse-drawn carts to putting people on the moon, and even that would have gone faster had scientists not constantly had to battle the churches attempts to impose their own paradigm, or their own self imposed epistemic limitations due to theism.


I gave you a method for wholly falsifying ToE. As I already said, the fact that some elements of ToE have been corrected isn't a fault, it's how science improves through being corrective. If it wasn't corrective, it wouldn't be labelled as a theory.

But no one is dealing in absolutes here, certainly not me.

You can't falsify ToE's main conclusion. The idea that the species have evolved to today's lifeforms has already happened and you can not replicate it.

For something to count as falsifiable, you have to be able to setup a suitable test. This is the absolute mainstay of established empirical method.

Most elements of ToE certainly stands on the shoulders of falsifiable claims, but the main conclusion of ToE is not one. I know you can find blogposts, speeches and essays that beg to differ, but they're simply not correct. It's the same limitation that makes history essentially a non-empirical discipline.

These people, like you, want both worlds. They want falsifiability and empirical method to be the end-all and be-all of scientific endeavors, and they want their favorite theories to qualify. In doing that, you are contradicting yourselves and opening the doors for anti-science nuts to crush you in debates.

Inductive reasoning is an integral part of science. Without it you'll pretty much be unable to say anything. Failure to admit this or to look at it as "weakness" is just folly. Accept it and the limitations it brings and move on.

This is factually incorrect, and you're distinguishing between ToE's 'main' conclusion and specifics, and that's just a distraction. Evolution has three main principles, variation, heritability and selection, and any of the following circumstances would falsify ToE:

If it could be shown that organisms with identical DNA have different genetic traits.
If it could be shown that mutations do not occur.
If it could be shown that when mutations do occur, they are not passed down through the generations.
If it could be shown that although mutations are passed down, no mutation could produce the sort of phenotypic changes that drive natural selection.
If it could be shown that selection or environmental pressures do not favor the reproductive success of better adapted individuals.
If it could be shown that even though selection or environmental pressures favor the reproductive success of better adapted individuals, "better adapted individuals" (at any one time) are not shown to change into other species.

(Source: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Falsif...y_of_evolution)

Also, we've witnessed evolution occurring, both macro and micro, and in all cases it has followed predictions.

No you don't, you simply have to identify something, even just an idea or an argument, that would prove your hypothesis wrong.

This is wrong, see above.

Nope, you're still just failing to understand the role of falsifiability and all the other criteria that I haven't really gone into detail about. Eg. a theory must be `Predictive, Corrective, Internally and externally consistent, Useful (this one's a biggy), Testable, Repeatable.

All this is irrelevant when the main conclusion is not falsifiable, and thus according to you unscientific and not worthy to be called theory.

You think induction is "problematic" and however much you object, this makes it impossible for you to defend science. If we can't induce, we can't do science.

I've shown you how the idea of ToE can be falsified multiple times now. You're disagreeing with every Evolutionary scientist on the planet, and yes I know that's basically an appeal to authority, but it's ok to do that sometimes.

I've also said multiple times that ToE meets every criterion to be called a theory and you haven't demonstrated a single instance of it not doing except your repeated and totally incorrect claim that it can't be falsified. Of course it can.


I think induction, even inference to best explanations is problematic if you need a reliable conclusion. A scientific hypothesis may start with an inductive conclusion, but it can never become a theory unless it can be falsified, to protect against an inductive conclusion that could be right or wrong to the point of being useless, or to quote Popper "it makes no difference whether it is true either way.".

Popper was completely clear that unfalsifiable statements was an integral part of science. Many statements must be induced from from available evidence and theory.

I have never said ToE is not a theory. It's one of the most solid and valuable theories in science. I'm pointing out that according to your criteria, it is not.

Again, you're conflating the general scientific approach with a scientific theory.

I've already agreed that induction pays a part in science, but, again, a theory isn't a theory if it can't be falsified.


No, 'my' criteria are what make it a theory. Your understanding of my argument is completely the reverse of what I've been saying, consistently, throughout the entire conversation.

This includes your multiple references to "the problem of induction"?

Induction isn't a problem, if it's a problem you should probably stop debating right away since it's pretty much impossible say anything without it. The mere view that something can be true or false (the absolute minimal requirement for falsifiability) is in itself induced, perhaps even abduced.

I think this is fairly uncomplicated. Your arguments on this issue aren't consistent. You see inductive reasoning as "problematic" and you want falsifiability as the end-all criterion of science, and this leaves you unable to adequately a) justify science b) defend how science can actually say anything.

My argument has been consistent all the way through. You have to agree that an inductive conclusion can never be logically valid, where a deductive conclusion can be. Right there is a problem caused by inductive conclusions.

I even quoted Popper explaining why falsification is so important, and even that hasn't moved you. Do you disagree with him?

The problem here is that you don't realize that the statement "a deductive conclusion can be <valid>" is induced.

I think Popper makes a good case for how empirical method should look , but he overstates it as the only viable method in science. But for the record, you are on several key issues contradicting Popper. Popper doesn't mind unfalsifiable statements and admits that these has to be part of most scientific theory, for example.

For more overarching views on science I'm much more partial to Thomas Kuhn, who is more interested in admitting the epistemological weaknesses of any scientific method or paradigm. That approach lays the groundwork for a much more solid and honest approach to methodology.

Sure, but the actual conclusion of the logically valid deductive argument, is... valid. And that's the same difference as using induction to start or progress a scientific enquiry, but using falsification to ensure that the final conclusion isn't simply inductive.


I think it's importance can't be overstated. Even though the empirical ideal is actually impossible to achieve since it relies entirely on perception and we can never truly trust our perceptions. It's still a very pragmatic and useful approach.


I don't know anything about him yet, but he's on my list. He's covered in a course I'm doing at the moment on the Philosophy of Science, but I haven't seen that lecture yet. I wouldn't disagree that any paradigm has weaknesses but that doesn't change that PN has still been the most useful paradigm for gaining understanding.

It is valuable to do so, but it isn't problematic to not - as long as you admit the weaknesses this carries.

I think "it's importance can't be overstated" is mostly rhetoric. I agree that empirical method it is extremely important and a very valuable tool, but it is not the end of all things. A case study wouldn't qualify as science according to Popper, but few would disagree that case studies are an extremely important part of medical research. Generalizable? No, but they can steer research based on actual evidence, which can be just as important.

He's well worth getting into, one of the most referenced academic authors in existence and for good reason. I think few people can read Kuhn and not approach science a bit more humbly afterwards, which is a good thing.

Hence the difference between a hypothesis and a theory.


No, without being falsifiable, something wouldn't qualify as a theory, but it can be science.

Then it'll be interesting to see if my view changes but I haven't come to this discussion in a vacuum with no previous knowledge.