Which is arbitrary and often contradictory. There is even science which doesn't make into hypothesis form.

You even have theories that are proven not to be correct, which are still held and taught as theories. Newtonian Mechanics is the best known example. Sure, at a more advanced stage in physics you'll learn that it is a sub-set of mechanics that only hold true under certain conditions, but it's still very much a scientific theory (and one of the most valuable we have).

Then you have changed your original argument, and any rate I'm not going to repeat myself for the 20th time.

Which is one of the main points Kuhn addresses.

Nope, I'm still saying what I've been saying since the very beginning. If it's not falsifiable, it can't qualify for the title 'theory'.

Oh?

Now:
Then:

As I've said previously, you're equating 'scientific process' with 'scientific theory'. They are not the same thing in the same way that the inductive beginning of a deductive argument is not the same as the valid conclusion of that argument. A distinction you continue to fail to see.

The second quote you used is out of context, I was talking about theories.

You're literally contradicting yourself in two quotes, but it's my fault.

Those are some impressive mental gymnastics.

I have to agree with tame_deuces there is some confusing language in these comments, even though I am somewhat agreeable to the idea that unfalsifiable and/or untestable models should be viewed differently than testable / falsifiable models, in that they do not get the 'gold standard' classification of scientific theory (and as you said, that doesn't make their endeavours unscientific). From what I can tell, Popper took the harder line that unfalsifiability meant the endeavour itself was not science, not just not theory. Either way, declaring unfalsifiable models are not scientific is question-begging given the topic (just as declaring it is scientific). tame_deuces view seems to suggest there is not much of an argument going on within the science itself, but it has not only been a topic at science / physics conferences, but the topic of an entire conference (perhaps more than one).

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MB, you say that falsifiability eliminates induction? While a falsified hypothesis is abandoned because it has been shown deductively to be false, it has not been shown deductively** to be true. You know this of course, so what gives?

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As an aside, following these comments (and reviewing similar ideas elsewhere) has been quite the headache. From finding consistent definitions for science terms (e.g. hypothesis, theory) even from so-called science organisations to whether science must include falsifiability (almost everywhere declares it must). I've written probably a half dozen replies myself and abandoned them all because of the inconsistency in what I found.

I think the example theory of evolution is making definitions etc more cloudy, not less. The ToE is such a broad field of study, while it's history could be thought of as a hypothesis going through scientific method, I'd say it's much more than that now. There are many hypotheses within the theory, though what people probably mean when they reference it is broadly natural selection or descent with modification.

So a hypothesis could eventually become theory if the theory is narrowly focused enough, but more likely is that hypothesis eventually becomes one aspect of the theory. Theory is the binder that contains all the supporting observations, data, hypotheses, conclusions, explanations, laws etc. Does anyone disagree with this way of looking at scientific theory?

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** To add to my confusion, wiki lists modus tollens under deduction, but then calls it abduction. Huh?

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PS Sorry for this messy stream-of-consciousness content! Something I asked in a previously deleted comment was this:

Q. What does [e.g. string theory] lose if it does not reach a 'standard' called scientific theory?
Q. Alternatively, what does it gain?

Presumably there can be agreement from either side that pseudo-science (homeopathy, creationism) should not be given the credibility of scientific endeavours, and I bet that is a driving force behind someone like MB, right? But what about "babies and bathwater"?

I have never meant to imply that this issue isn't discussed in science, it very much is.

But there are some issues here. One is that scientists aren't typically very good at epistemology (as a trend, some of course are extremely versed). If you go back 200 years the academic foundation in science tended to be broader, but now it is very specialized. A convoluted way of saying that scientists are very rarely philosophers. A method course today might briefly mention Karl Popper, Foucalt and Thomas Kuhn (which ones pending on which field you're studying), but that's about it.

I mean, just something as basic as the study object not being the study model could often be lost on an average researcher. I have myself sat in presentation of studies where experienced professors have declared their hypothesis proven by statistical tests, while the correct thing to say is that the statistical tests found no fault in the proposed model. You need a discussion on scientific validity to show that the proposed model is relevant to the hypothesis, and you can never prove a scientific hypothesis true with empirical falsifiability anyway: You can at best show that it is survives the tests you have declared to be adequate.

And it does have real world ramifications. We had a discussion on this board where someone declared children of religious parents to be "less moral" because of a media article based on a study of religiosity where it was shown that in a specific experimental setting these children were seemingly less generous. The study didn't show that the children were less moral, at best it showed that they had different morals. The empirical model (based on falsifiability) was solid, simple and elegant. It was the understanding of its scientific validity (what does it actually say about the real world) that was lacking.

So falsifiability can never be the end-all and be-all of science, because for all its strengths it doesn't necessarily tell us much on its own.

Another issue is that empirical falsifiability isn't utilized as much as people think. Replica studies are very rare, tend not to get published and within academia today there is very much pressure to publish original research. It's also a badly hidden secret that when you do get true negatives as a result, those hypotheses tend to be scrapped from the article before publication. It's easy to understand why; you'd much rather publish on something that seems to be correct than on something that seems to be wrong, but it also means that the "Popperian" way of doing science, simply isn't used much as it seems. Why is this important? Because it means that the main reason to use falsifiability as a principle is severely under-utilized. That non-empirical lone case study that seemingly contradicts the big accepted empirical model is suddenly extremely valuable, not because it shows it to be false - but because it opens up the debate that it might be.

The healthy thing to do is to look at empirical method and empirical falsifiability as very strong tools for scientific research. It's also perfectly acceptable to expect that strong declarations about real world phenomena should be subject to such tests.

Regarding the subject of quasi-science, I think that's an exaggaration. If someone uses quantitative method (which is non-empirical by nature) within science, they'll concede that they can't conclude and that their findings aren't generalizeable. To accept quantitative method as scientific doesn't mean that homeopathy is suddenly legit science. Quite the contrary, it would show you that it most certainly is not.

No I'm not. Already explained why not.

And you're exhibiting an impressive ability to to fail to understand something that's really quite simple.

No. I said it solves the Problem of Induction, which is that an inductive conclusions (I agree that Induction is essential to science) are much more difficult to support or justify than a hypothesis that can be falsified and has been subject to rigorous testing and hasn't been falsified. An idea that can't be falsified, i.e. there isn't a way to falsify it, is virtually useless.

Actually no, I started this thread to discuss what makes beliefs rational and only put it into a religious context so that I could post it here. I'm not sure now how it evolved into a conversation about why Falsifiability is so important to science but I just went with it.

Yes, it's my impressive ability to not understand that "If it isn't falsifiable, it isn't scientific" doesn't contradict "without being falsifiable <...> it can be science" which is the problem here.

Again....... in the second quote, I was also talking about scientific theories. Both those quotes are about scientific theories, they are both about scientific theories. And did I mention that both quotes are about scientific theories? Sorry, one more thing, before I forget, both those quotes are about scientific theories.


And again, I never said it was. This is basically a straw man and I don't understand why you're still saying this. Falsifiability, again, is one of a number of criteria that a scientific theory must meet. I even listed them for you. What's going on here mate, it's like you're not really paying attention.

What is going on is that I think you should have the intellectual fortitude to admit that you shifted your position.

And why is this important to me? Because when you shift your position and pretend all my points adressed your new position and not the old one, it's annoying and messy.

Soccer is pretty easy if you get to declare after the match where your goalposts were.

I haven't shifted my position, I've been saying that something can't be considered to have the status of 'scientific theory' if it's not falsifiable right from the beginning. You're fixating on an out of context quote, thinking you're making some kind of devastating point and actually you're just completely missing the point. This is my last reply on this issue. We either move back to the subject and leave behind your incorrect accusation, or I think we're done here. I'm out of patience now. No one likes being repeatedly called a liar, I'm no different. Just stop it now.

Well, anyone can read my post, click the quote arrows and go back and read what you wrote in full. I don't think there is much room for misunderstanding.

That you don't want to talk about it anymore is fine by me.

I do want to talk about it, but we're not, we're stuck on this pointless and quite offensive accusation. After all this time you can't take my word for it? I'm more than happy to agree when my position has changed, if it actually has, but it hasn't on this subject, I even posted something on a different thread about three positions of mine that have changed because of posting here.

If your next post references those quotes again I'll assume you're done talking about the actual subject.

I forgot to answer this in my first post.

First of all, it would have to be called scientific theories. String theory is not one thing, it is more a name of a field of research. You could probably reasonably argue that the word "theory" in string theory is more a reference to its mathematical origins than anything else.

Secondly, string theory has plenty of experimental evidence. It's just that a) that evidence doesn't uniquely support string theory over other approaches b) the main tenet (that the the universe is composed of strings) is not yet falsifiable.

Thirdly, I don't think a discussion whether it qualifies to be called a scientific theory is all that useful. The simple truth is that if you start setting hard goalposts for such a thing, you'd probably find a lot of accepted theories that could no longer be called theories. You could for example never say anything about the distant past within the framework of a scientific theory if you demand falsifiability in every corner, because such claims are by their very nature not falsifiable (at least not yet).

Fourthly I think setting a hard goalpost for what constitutes a scientific theory would have an adverse effect on academia. I think much useful conjecture would be slashed with the goal of strictly operating within what could be called a scientific theory. This isn't "empty air". Already today we see that academic publication standards can have an adverse effect in the sense of much potentially interesting exploratory work being cut to fit into those narrow criteria.

And lastly I don't think many people working with string theory has a problem with a discussion over its empirical weaknesses. That discussion has been ongoing for many years, including the "is it even a theory?" debate. I doubt setting a hard line in the sand for what can be called a theory would make this debate better. I suspect the opposite would be true, that this somewhat arbitrary line in the sand would rather work as a rather unfair way of simply declaring it "unscientific".

Is ID a scientific theory?

Since it fails even today's soft goalposts for such a name, I don't think that question is a good as you thought it was.

What are those 'soft goalposts'?

I'm simply approaching this from a new angle, and trying to identify the difference between what you consider qualifies something to be called a scientific theory, and what I think does that.

I'm not opposed to scientific standards. I'm opposed to standards based on simplified and crude understandings of the scientific process.

For example if I extrapolate from your arguments in this thread, I'd have little problem constructing a "scientific" version of ID. I'd simply have to refrain from references to divinity and build my main arguments into falsifiable models, which isn't very hard to do. I'm sure you realize that there is more to science than simply the things you have focused on, but that's also my point here.

Which goes to show that the most important thing about scientific standards is a systematic, educated, evidence-based, peer-based and fair approach to attaining knowledge. The rest is book-keeping.

ID meets those standards, so why isn't it a scientific theory?

I'm surprised that you think ID stems from a systematic, educated, evidence-based, peer-based and fair process. I most certainly don't.

It would be rather simple to make it qualify as science using the criteria you have harped on this thread however. It would be just be a matter of cramming it through the loopholes.

It's all of those things. Perhaps you can elaborate on how it fails any of those criteria, you know, some specifics...

Really. Explain how you would falsify god. This should be interesting.

It's completely amazing that you're saying ID is the result of a systematic, educated, evidence-based, peer-based and fair process. I'd say you've gone down such a route of complete intellectual dishonesty here that there is no way back. You seem to be actively lying about your own beliefs in a desperate attempt to try and score some imaginary point.

But sure. It isn't very systematic, but seems mostly to be a haphazard collection of apologeticism. It has no standards of education, accepting writing from everything from M.Ds, theologians, historians or even people without credentials. It certainly isn't evidence-based as it is mostly based on ignoring evidence. It has consistently failed peer-based publication standards and pretty much every major publication can be traced to religious organizations with a vested interest in creationism, so it doesn't come of as very fair.

But really, just your willingness to be so deep down the rabbit hole that you are now speaks volumes about your integrity in this debate. When you're so desperate to be right that you're willing to call ID for systematic, educated, evidence-based, peer-based and fair - then I think we're pretty much done.

Redefine it as intelligent cause, propose an experimental test, call the independent variable intelligent cause. Make up some gibberish about validity. Yell at anyone who objects that you're you're empirical and falsifiable and therefore scientific.

It's a theory and it's considered by scientists, and that alone makes it a scientific theory according to what you've posted ITT. It's systematic, there is plenty of evidence offered to support it especially in the form of arguments, many people who accept it are educated on the subject, and it has also passed much peer based review. That you don't consider it 'fair' is irrelevant tbh.

So, clearly a scientific theory. By your own standards.

So you'll show how god can be falsified by moving the goalposts. I'd prefer it if you show how you would falsify the god that ID is intended to show exists. Can you do that?

Or maybe you can explain how ID can be Predictive, or Useful, or Corrective?