What is a scientific attitude?
Hi everyone
I have been reading on the Philosophy of Science recently, about the scientific method, how does one explain reality through different world conceptions, i. e. science, philosophy and religion. I am reading the book Philosophy of Science for Scientists from Lars-Göran Johansson, and I discovered the ideas from Karl Popper on Falsificationism, Kuhn's Scientific Revolutions and similar. I am an engineering student who has no formal training in Philosophy, only knows the basic mainstream ideas like Existentialism, Idealism and so on. Still, I am interested more on the Philosophy of Science, I want to understand more the activity we call Science, why hypothesis like God's existence are not considered scientific. I do not feel confident to read Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery, but, after all, what is actually science?
I have been reading on the Philosophy of Science recently, about the scientific method, how does one explain reality through different world conceptions, i. e. science, philosophy and religion. I am reading the book Philosophy of Science for Scientists from Lars-Göran Johansson, and I discovered the ideas from Karl Popper on Falsificationism, Kuhn's Scientific Revolutions and similar. I am an engineering student who has no formal training in Philosophy, only knows the basic mainstream ideas like Existentialism, Idealism and so on. Still, I am interested more on the Philosophy of Science, I want to understand more the activity we call Science, why hypothesis like God's existence are not considered scientific. I do not feel confident to read Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery, but, after all, what is actually science?
Comments (48)
It depends who you ask, different people give different definitions for science. I'll try to explain why as best I can.
Many people have attempted to define precisely what science is, to find precise criteria that allow to say whether a hypothesis or theory or practice is scientific or not. But all the definitions they have found fail in some way: either they classify as 'scientific' some hypotheses or theories or practices that are widely considered to be unscientific, or they classify as 'unscientific' some hypotheses/theories/practices that are widely considered to be scientific. This is known in the philosophy of science as the "problem of demarcation".
Popper's criterion of falsifiability fails in that many theories which are widely considered to be scientific are in fact not falsifiable. This is because when an observation appears to contradict a theory, the theory doesn't have to be considered falsified, rather the theory can always be saved by assuming that the difference between observation and theory is due to an effect that wasn't accounted for in applying the theory. For instance, when Uranus was found to move in a way that didn't match Newton's theory of gravitation, Newton's theory could have been considered falsified, or it could be assumed that there was an unaccounted-for effect, an undetected planet that was responsible for the difference between prediction and observation.
As it turns out that undetected planet was eventually detected, it's called Neptune, but even if no such planet was ever found, it could still be assumed there was an invisible undetected planet that is responsible for Uranus' unusual motion, so even if that planet wasn't found the theory wouldn't have been falsified. We have a similar situation these days: stars in galaxies do not move in the way that Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts, but that doesn't falsify the theory, because the theory can be saved by assuming there is invisible matter that is responsible for the discrepancy, and this is what was done: they call it dark matter. And that invisible matter has never been detected.
So when you take that into account, you realize that it's not precise criteria that determine whether a theory is falsified or not, it is people themselves, so-called scientists, based on their own desires: if they want to continue working on the theory then they can always save it from falsification, and if they want to stop working on it they call it falsified and they move on to some alternative. Theories that are called scientific cannot be falsified if scientists decide to not consider them falsified. So if we say that a scientific theory is a theory that can be falsified, and an unscientific theory is a theory that cannot be falsified, then that means it is scientists themselves who decide whether a theory is scientific or not, not based on precise criteria but based on their own desires!
And so the state of affairs is that we have a group of people, who call themselves scientists, who decide more or less arbitrarily which hypotheses/theories/practices are scientific and which aren't, in other words which ones are worthy of consideration and which ones aren't. Which is quite far from the scientific ideal that is sold to people, wherein supposedly science is this precisely defined thing that has authority over non-science because it follows precise principles that non-science doesn't follow.
And then to answer your other question, the hypothesis of God's existence could be considered scientific, but the community of people who call themselves scientists choose to consider it unscientific, because they choose to consider that no observation or experience can be interpreted as evidence of God's existence. On the other hand they choose to consider the hypothesis of dark matter's existence to be scientific, because they choose to interpret some observations as evidence of it, even though one could very well choose to consider that no observation can be interpreted as evidence of dark matter's existence. There is a double standard there.
People who call themselves scientists choose to believe in dark matter but not in God, not because there is evidence for dark matter and not for God, but because they choose on their own to interpret observations as evidence of dark matter and no observation as evidence of God, that's all it boils down to. Then these people use their position of authority to tell others what to believe and what not to believe in, and to ostracize/ridicule those who believe differently. That's the scientific attitude.
I think I have a scientific attitude, even though there is a VAST amount of science I don't know anything about. But my attitude is that effects have causes. Things don't "just happen" without something happening somewhere.
Science is every proposition that can be justified by experimental testing.
Science is an epistemic domain, i.e. all knowledge that can be reached and justified with a particular epistemic method. God's existence is considered not a scientific question, in the sense that the scientific method cannot reach it in order to justify an answer.
Every epistemic method generates its own epistemic domain that does not intersect with other epistemic domains: mathematics, science, history, epistemology itself, and possibly other methods.
I mentioned above how that idea is flawed. Any observation has to be interpreted in order to say whether it is evidence of something. Scientists would say that the existence of subatomic particles is a scientific question, even though they don't see these particles, they only interpret observations in terms of these particles, while assuming their existence. They could very well interpret observations in terms of God, while assuming his existence, they simply choose not to, based on their personal desires/beliefs.
Arbitrary observations cannot be used for the purpose of validating scientific theories. It is not possible to establish causality between input and output without strictly controlling input. Furthermore, other researchers must be able to repeat the experimental tests in order to verify the claim. That is why only observations in a laboratory setting may be used in such experimental test reports.
Your views are far outside what is supported by the scientific method.
Why?
There's a harmony in her form.
How do you address my comment about subatomic particles, are you implying scientists strictly control subatomic particles?
Quoting alcontali
That doesn't address what I said. Sure researchers can see repeatedly that stars do not move the way they should according to Einstein's theory, that doesn't imply dark matter exists. If you say it does, then people can equally say that such or such repeated observation implies that God exists, because they have a theory that says that we wouldn't make this observation in the absence of God.
Quoting alcontali
I don't agree there is such a thing as "the scientific method". Whatever method you have in mind, there are plenty of examples of scientists who didn't follow that method when they built their theory (yet their theories are considered to be 'scientific'), or there are plenty of examples of theories/practices that follow that method and yet are considered to be 'unscientific'.
Can you link to any particular publication in order to clarify what it is about?
Quoting leo
The scientific method is an empirical method of acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century. It involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive assumptions can distort how one interprets the observation. It involves formulating hypotheses, via induction, based on such observations; experimental and measurement-based testing of deductions drawn from the hypotheses; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings. These are principles of the scientific method, as distinguished from a definitive series of steps applicable to all scientific enterprises.
Knowledge, as a justified belief, is justified with standard epistemic methods, whereunder the scientific one.
Quoting leo
Can you give concrete examples for your view?
You're saying the existence of God is not a scientific question, based on some criteria, I'm saying that by the same criteria the existence of subatomic particles is not a scientific question, yet as you must know they are fundamental constituents in theories of fundamental physics, so there is a double standard in saying one is scientific and the other isn't.
Quoting alcontali
Great, a copy-paste from Wikipedia where some dude has written a definition for "the scientific method". The question isn't whether people out there have given a definition for "the scientific method", the question is whether all that we call science follows "the scientific method", and all that we call non-science doesn't follow "the scientific method", whether "the scientific method" characterizes what we call science. I say there is no such thing as "the scientific method" in the sense that it doesn't characterize what we call science, because it also characterizes some of what we call non-science.
With this definition of "the scientific method", you can very well consider the existence of God as a scientific question, by "formulating hypotheses, via induction, based on careful observations; experimental and measurement-based testing of deductions drawn from the hypotheses; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings".
You're saying we can't observe God, well we can't observe subatomic particles or dark matter either. However some people interpret some observations as evidence for subatomic particles or dark matter, and some other people interpret some observations as evidence of God.
It depends what subatomic particles it is about.
Chemistry makes extensive use of the subatomic structure of electrons, and atom nucleus in terms of protons and neutrons. It is ancient stuff that dates back to the 19th century. It is considered solid stuff at the chemical scale.
The closer you get to the Planck scale, the less solid the theories, which are often merely conjectures. However, that does not mean that all subatomic theories are just fantasies that have never been tested experimentally.
Quoting leo
It is equivalent to the definition in Encyclopaedia Britannica and elsewhere. There is certainly a consensus that the scientific method requires experimental testing.
Science is the collection of all statements that can be tested experimentally. Science is an epistemic domain.
Quoting leo
Propose an experiment that you will carry out and that other people will be able to repeat. If it is possible to do that, then the question is within reach of the scientific method. Otherwise, it isn't. For example, you cannot propose an experiment to figure out in a laboratory in what year Napoleon's Battle of Waterloo took place. That question is simply not within reach of the scientific method.
Quoting leo
If it can be tested experimentally, then it is science. Can you give an example of a theory that can be tested experimentally and that is not considered science?
Quoting leo
I did not say that. I just don't see what laboratory-based, experimental test would say anything worthwhile on the matter. Science is not the only epistemic domain. If your only tool is a hammer, then the whole world will soon start looking like a nail.
Electrons have no subatomic structure in chemistry, they are already subatomic. Anyway have you ever seen an electron? Has anyone ever observed an electron? No? Then what makes you think the question of their existence is scientific?
Quoting alcontali
Here we start getting into why that kind of talk about "the scientific method" angers me, because people associate what is labeled 'unscientific' with fantasies, with irrelevant stories we should not believe or rely on, whereas supposedly we should believe what is labeled as 'scientific'. The whole problem is hypotheses/theories/practices are often labeled 'unscientific', and thus as 'fantasies', not because they don't follow "the scientific method" but simply because scientists don't like them.
Quoting alcontali
Why do you keep talking about a laboratory, the whole universe is a laboratory, astrophysicists and cosmologists don't physically put planets and stars into a box here on Earth to study them, geologists do not put mountains into a laboratory to observe them, observations happen everywhere, they are an essential part of the so-called scientific method. Any act is an experiment, if you jump and you observe that you fall back to the ground that's an experiment.
How would you figure out what year the battle of Waterloo took place if not through observations and hypotheses?
Quoting alcontali
What does it mean to test experimentally? It simply means that you do something and expect some result, and compare the result with what you expected.
You can have the theory that the position of planets in the sky has a specific influence on your life that depends on when you were born. You can test experimentally whether what you observe matches what the theory predicts. Is that theory considered science?
Quoting alcontali
Do you consider like scientists that experiments say anything worthwhile about the existence of dark matter? If you do then that's a double standard, because the situation is parallel with that regarding the existence of God.
Again, scientists decide what they should observe if dark matter exists, and then they carry out experiments to decide about the existence of dark matter. We can just as well decide what we should observe if some God exists, then carry out experiments to decide about the existence of God.
Then when they say that dark matter exists, that it really is out there, but that God doesn't exist or that experiments can't say anything about its existence, that's really quite hypocritical. What it boils down to is they are pushing their belief of what exists and what doesn't, of how the world is and how it isn't, of what we should believe and what we shouldn't, they're simply pushing their world view onto others.
To say that the existence of dark matter is a scientific question but not the existence of God is hypocritical. Either both of them are scientific questions, or neither. But what I say here also applies to the existence of subatomic particles, to the questions of what we are made of, of what we are, of what the universe will be like in the distant future. Scientists do not discover the answers to these questions, they decide them, and then push them as "scientific truth", in other words as what people ought to believe. That's the problem.
Quoting leo
Well, I meant to say the subatomic structure [consisting] of ...
Sorry, I did not realize that it sounded so ambiguous.
Quoting leo
You actually pointed out a real problem. In his seminal publication, Science as Falsification, Karl Popper explicitly allows for predictive models in science:
[i]We all—the small circle of students to which I belong—were thrilled with the result of Eddington's eclipse observations which in 1919 brought the first important confirmation of Einstein's theory of gravitation.
Now the impressive thing about this case is the risk involved in a prediction of this kind. If observation shows that the predicted effect is definitely absent, then the theory is simply refuted. The theory is incompatible with certain possible results of observation—in fact with results which everybody before Einstein would have expected.[/i]
I think that this view may be too liberal. Even a broken clock gives the time correctly twice a day.
If predictive power were enough and experimental control of input variables unnecessary, then even so-called technical analysis of stock exchange data would be science. Stock-market technical analysis judiciously enrols previous, historical data to minimize future prediction errors.
I think that predictive modelling may be useful, but it must not be confused with experimental testing. Predictive modelling does not establish causality by strictly controlling inputs. Therefore, it must be considered another epistemic method. Predictive modelling is not science.
Still, I agree with Karl Popper that there was risk involved in Eddington's observation. They did put skin in the game. So, it is not mere cheap conjecturing either.
Quoting leo
Agreed. A large number of people, undoubtedly the vast majority, believes in the existence of one single epistemic method, the scientific one. That view is utter nonsense, but nonetheless widespread, especially in the West. The more shoddy the scientific training of a western person, the more likely he will glorify scientism:
Scientism is an ideology that promotes science as the only objective means by which society should determine normative and epistemological values. The term scientism is generally used critically, pointing to the cosmetic application of science in unwarranted situations not amenable to application of the scientific method or similar scientific standards.
The absolutely most stupid people on the globe live in the West. The populace in the West may be moderately more knowledgeable than in third-world countries, but is also much more beholden to patently false beliefs. Combine that with rampant arrogance and the practice of claiming credit for other people's work, who were real intellectuals while they are not, and then you probably understand one of the many reasons why these people are hated by the rest of the planet.
Quoting leo
You still need to write your experimental test report in such a way that another person can repeat your experiment and verify that he obtains the same results. Seriously, there is no experiment if you do not produce a reproducible experimental test report.
Quoting leo
Claims that historical events really took place are not justified by the scientific method, but by the historical method, which revolves around corroborating witness depositions. There is absolutely no expectation that a third party should be able to reproduce the same event/observation (like in the scientific method):
[i]Gilbert J Garraghan and Jean Delanglez divide source criticism into six inquiries:
When was the source, written or unwritten, produced (date)?
Where was it produced (localization)?
By whom was it produced (authorship)?
From what pre-existing material was it produced (analysis)?
In what original form was it produced (integrity)?
What is the evidential value of its contents (credibility)?[/i]
The justification and validation of historical witness reports are dealt with using a very specific, epistemic method: the historical method. I do not see how anybody could confuse this method with the scientific method, which is applied in other circumstances and has other requirements.
Quoting leo
No, because you must put the planets by yourself in a particular position and measure the quantified impact on your life. Next, someone else must put the planets by himself in a particular position and see if he gets another impact.
You first need to find a way to painstakingly move the planets in any arbitrary position of your choice, before scientific theories could be feasible.
Quoting leo
At this stage, dark matter is merely a conjecture. It is not a theory backed by experimental testing.
Quoting leo
No, it is just a hypothesis. It is something that they would like to test experimentally, but they haven't figured out how yet.
Quoting leo
What both questions have in common, is that you would need to design an experimental test setup in order to turn them into scientific theories. Since there is nothing to test, nor any test to repeat by someone else, in order to validate that they get the same results as in your test, there is no legitimate scientific activity possible in either realm.
A scientist is a glorified tester, who carries out his work in a laboratory. If you refuse to say what exactly he should test and how he should test it, there will be nothing to test, and therefore no work to do for a scientist.
In my first post I explained how a scientific theory can be not falsifiable if scientists decide not to falsify it, no matter the apparent evidence against it. We have a bunch of scientific theories that are not falsifiable, yet scientists go on and claim that other theories are 'unscientific' because they are not falsifiable. Double standard again.
Even if Eddington's observations could not be doubted, even if there was no possible errors in his measurements, even if his measurements didn't match what the theory predicted, scientists could have still saved Einstein's theory by assuming whatever is needed to save it, for instance that there is dust around the Sun or some undetected thing responsible for the difference between observation and theory. If scientists so decide, whatever theory they like can never be falsified.
Quoting alcontali
I don't agree with that, life is a continuous experiment, people didn't need to write reproducible experimental test reports to come up with tools that allowed them to hunt more easily or to start agriculture, they didn't need test reports to make experiments and create technology.
Even reproducibility is not mentioned in the definition of "scientific method" you quoted. Scientists often talk about the need of an experiment to be reproducible, the funny thing is a lot of experimental results in sciences are reported and taken at face value without ever being reproduced, then a long time later someone decides to try it too and they realize they don't get the same result, but in many cases the experiment doesn't get repeated and scientists assume that they would get the same result if they repeated it.
Also there are some so-called scientific experiments that cannot be reproduced. Think of the large hadron collider, the thousands of people who have worked on it, the numerous models and computer programs and assumptions involved, and as a result the gigantic number of variables needed to describe precisely that experiment, how could that whole experiment ever be precisely reproduced? Then think of the OPERA experiment and their supposed detection of faster-than-light particles, it took them a whole year to realize that they got this result because of a fiber optic cable that was attached improperly, think of all the possible sources of errors in the much more complex large hadron collider and the impossibility of reproducing it precisely, yet scientists call it a scientific experiment.
Also there is an irreducible lack of reproducibility in that by the time an experiment is done again, the universe has changed, nothing forces us to assume that there is such a thing as eternal laws of nature that are valid everywhere forever. The requirement of reproducibility leads to discard a lot of personal and collective reports, to dismiss them as if they never happened, to do so is to wear blinders and focus on a part of the whole, then when they say that their theories describe the whole it's such a hypocrisy.
And consider there are things that are scientifically accepted even though many people do not experience them, for instance tinnitus. The only reason it is accepted is that there are too many people who report having it, if there were only a few it would be much easier to dismiss it as a fantasy.
Scientists are totally inconsistent in the way they label theories as 'scientific' or 'unscientific', they apply the rules they want when it suits them and not when it doesn't, they call 'scientific' the theories they want to keep and 'unscientific' the ones they want to eliminate. Reproducibility and falsifiability are red herrings, they are not what determines why a theory is labeled 'scientific', scientists are the ones who decide that based on their own desires and prejudices. Then they call the 'unscientific' ones fantasies and other derogatory terms (crackpottery, pseudoscience, fairy tales, wrong, ridiculous, bullshit), and scoff at those who want to believe in them or entertain them.
Quoting alcontali
To determine when and where the source was produced, by whom, from what, in what form, you have to make observations and hypotheses, and test these hypotheses by comparing them with other observations, I don't see how the requirements are different. The historical event is not what is demanded to be reproduced, but rather the observational and thought process that leads to saying that the event really took place. But then again even the requirement of reproducibility is not applied consistently at all by scientists.
Quoting alcontali
I don't agree with that, Newton and Einstein didn't need to move the planets in any arbitrary position of their choice to build a theory of how planets influence one another. People can agree on where celestial bodies are in the sky, scientists already do. Scientists model the influence of the Moon and Sun on the tides here on Earth, in what way are they moving the Moon and the Sun?
Why would a theory that models the influence of celestial bodies on Earth tides be scientific, and not a theory that models the influence of celestial bodies on people's lives?
Quoting alcontali
Many scientists say it exists.
Example from Scientific American https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-dark-matter-theory-or/ : "Dark matter is known to exist through the gravitational effect it exerts on visible matter in the universe."
Example from the NASA website https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/review/dr-marc-space/dark-matter.html : "there is more than 50 times more dark matter than bright matter in the universe" , "what exactly is the dark matter made of?"
Quoting alcontali
Actually they have done many experiments, and they have failed to detect it. But they don't say the theory is falsified, no no, they say it does exist and they need to make some other experiment to detect it. They could keep going like this forever, and still say it exists, and never falsify it, and still call it science. See the hypocrisy?
Quoting alcontali
But precisely they have designed experiments and performed them, look how many there are! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Experiments_for_dark_matter_search
And again they could do the very same thing with God: say what we should observe in such or such experiment if God exists, and carry out the experiment. But they don't, because double standard, they want to believe in a material universe without God, so they frame their research and theories and reasonings in that way, and that way they're sure to always find matter and never God.
1) let's make sure it's what we think it is by eliminating other possibilities
2) let's do it a lot to make sure it isn't change
3) maybe if this is true then that is true, and that's interesting
4) I wonder what could make it seem that way I haven't thought of
5) I wonder if this and that and those are true, which they seem to be, what is a good way of talking about the whole set of things (iow what's a good model=
6) I love taking things apart and seeing what the pieces do
7) I love putting things together and seeing what happens
8) I love doing things many times
9) I wonder if this pattern follows a formula
10) Anomolies itch like heck and you must scratch them. You can't just let them sit there unexplained.
11) You are curious at least within your area.
12) You need to know if anything is being assumed
13) you enjoy testing things in the minds simulator
On reflection, what I had to say is not on-topic. :blush:
This is one of Nassim Taleb's pet peeves:
Theory is born from (convex) practice more often than the reverse (the nonteleological property)
Science is much more about systematizing existing discoveries inside a framework that guards consistency than about making new discoveries.
Scientific research most often just documents what is going on already. In that respect, Taleb writes:
This makes us live in the contradiction that we largely got here to where we are thanks to undirected chance, but we build research programs going forward based on direction and narratives. And, what is worse, we are fully conscious of the inconsistency.
Still, in my opinion, this rigorous systematization and documentation practice is useful in itself.
Quoting leo
Yes, that is the scandal that plagues modern scientific research. Most experimental test reports are not reproducible when someone attempts to. That is one reason why a lot of modern scientific research needs to be taken with a grain of salt. I suspect that the majority of published scientific research is simply not serious.
Quoting leo
The less the audience understands about the epistemology of science, the easier it is to mislead them. Therefore, the propensity to deceive is not a property innate to scientists but to their audience. If you see a herd of sheep, the wolves cannot be far away. If you see a gang of manipulable people, you will see the manipulators automatically materialize in their neighbourhood, out of the fricking blue.
Quoting leo
That amounts to predictive modelling.
In some cases, I will accept it as serious, but in many cases, I will not. Again, the problem is that you can also do that kind of predictive modelling with the stock market. It is obvious that not all predictive modelling is unserious, but the safe approach is to refuse to grant it scientific status; a status which should be limited to experimental testing only.
Quoting leo
The one is serious predictive modelling with a real risk associated -- in terms of Karl Popper's article -- while the other is not. In my opinion, neither is science. I consider Karl Popper's definition for science, which includes predictive modelling, to be simply too permissive.
Quoting leo
I was going to read the article, until I saw its title: "Is dark matter theory or fact?"
Sorry. I am not reading that. Opposing "theory" (bad) to "fact" (good) can only be an exercise in stupidity.
Quoting leo
Give them time to design an experiment for their conjecture. In the meanwhile, their hypothesis should be considered to be merely an interesting research topic.
Quoting leo
I have had a look at the Axion Dark Matter Experiment.
The experiment (written as "eXperiment" in the project's documentation) is designed to detect the very weak conversion of dark matter axions into microwave photons in the presence of a strong magnetic field. If the hypothesis is correct, an apparatus consisting of an 8 tesla magnet and a cryogenically cooled high-Q tunable microwave cavity should stimulate the conversion of axions into photons.
The hypothesis is certainly interesting, and most likely an ambitious research topic, undoubtedly worth exploring, but none of the wording suggests that the experiment would be conclusive at this point.
Quoting leo
Would you want them to use something like an axion haloscope to that effect? The fact that they do not believe that searching for God with an axion haloscope is a suitable approach, does not necessarily mean that "they want to believe in a material universe without God".
It is also not because someone is not interested in searching for God by looking for him with a telescope, that he would be an atheist. I think that such view on science, scientists, and scientific research is flawed.
How do you differentiate predictive modelling from experimental testing?
In the stock market technical analysis doesn't take into account the fact that those who move the markets adapt their strategy to take money from others, so if there is a predictive model that works and many people start using it then the big pockets can take money from these people by moving the market against them and then obviously the predictive model stops working. When we deal with celestial bodies presumably we don't have planet movers who act deliberately to make our models stop working after a while.
Can you give an example of what you consider as experimental testing? And how do you differentiate it from comparing observations with what some theory predicts?
Quoting alcontali
I think you might have misinterpreted Karl Popper there. In the quote you mentioned earlier, he wasn't saying that a predictive model is risky in the sense that it is not as serious or as certain as something else, but in the sense that a model that makes a prediction that can be checked experimentally is at risk of being falsified, in case the observation doesn't match the theory's prediction. Popper saw that risk as a good thing, he saw it as a necessary part of scientific theories.
If you say that there are theories with no such risk associated, then such theories would be absolutely certain, they would be verified, do you have examples of that? Popper himself said that theories cannot be verified, only falsified (but as it turns out he was wrong on that, strictly speaking theories cannot be falsified either).
Quoting alcontali
Yea I didn't say it was a good article, but it shows that scientists believe dark matter exists, they mostly don't treat it as a hypothesis.
Quoting alcontali
They don't treat it as a hypothesis but as something that exists.
Quoting alcontali
They have never detected it and still they say that it exists, that's the thing. If you look for instance at the article for the Large Underground Xenon Experiment:
[i]Despite the wealth of (gravitational) evidence supporting the existence of non-baryonic dark matter in the Universe, dark matter particles in our galaxy have never been directly detected in an experiment.
The detector was decommissioned in 2016.[/i]
Quoting alcontali
You misinterpreted me. I didn't say they should look for God with an "axion haloscope", I didn't say that they should carry out the same experiments to detect dark matter than they would to detect God.
I say that their whole premise that what they would detect in their experiments is objectively "dark matter" is flawed. They might detect something at some point. It does not follow that what they would detect is "dark matter". Their reasoning is that "if we make this observation in that experiment, then dark matter exists". I say that this is pure belief. And that similarly, they could design some other experiment and say "if we make this observation in that experiment, then God exists". In both cases they would interpret some observation as evidence of the existence of something. That interpretation is their own, they are the ones who impose it on what they see.
I say they want to believe in a material universe without God, because they are looking to interpret observations as evidence for the existence of matter, not as evidence for the existence of God.
Why do they believe some observation would be evidence of the existence of dark matter? Because they assume that dark matter exists and that it has such and such properties which would manifest in such and such ways. They could equally assume that God exists and that he has such and such properties which would manifest in such and such ways.
They are choosing to assume the existence of dark matter, not the existence of God, which to me is a sign that they believe in a material universe without God. Sure some scientists believe in God, but they separate him from science, and in science they replace him with Matter, the invisible Matter which is everywhere and shapes the universe.
In experimental testing, you must be able to strictly control the inputs:
outputs = theoretical_function ( inputs )
When you feed the inputs into the experiment, it will act like a function that maps it on the outputs. Good examples can be found in chemistry experiments:
Hot Ice is a name given to sodium acetate, a chemical you can make by reacting vinegar and baking soda. A solution of sodium acetate can be supercooled? so that it will crystallize on command. Heat is evolved when the crystals form, so although it resembles water ice, it's hot.
sodium acetate = f ( vinegar, baking soda)
You strictly control the inputs, i.e. vinegar and baking soda, and then the experimental function will map them onto sodium acetate. Chemistry, with its formula system, allows for rigorously calculating input and output quantities along with energy absorbed or produced.
Without complete input control, you do not have a legitimate experiment, and therefore, you would not be doing science.
Quoting leo
Predictive modelling does not require input control. We do not control the forces that generate the weather, but the weather forecast will still model and predict future weather reports. This is not science, because they are not in control of the inputs that go into the weather process in order to output any particular weather. It is merely predictive modelling. No matter how accurate the predictions may be, I do not wish to include it in the scientific method. If it is allowed in, the stock-market charlatans will call their predictions also science.
Quoting leo
Quoting leo
Quoting leo
They observe more gravitation in the universe than can be accounted for by the existing total quantity of matter (that they can observe). A lot of things could go wrong in this hypothesis, if only, the accounting of total quantity of matter.
So, now they are looking for something that they believe should cause the excess amount of gravitation that they observe, code-named "dark matter", which is something matter-like, because it causes gravity -- as the standard model believes that matter causes gravity -- but not matter itself, because that would be visible, which it isn't.
What is your problem with these people conducting experiments to figure out where the catch is? Let them try to figure it out, no?
Quoting leo
Abrahamic religions are adamant that God, creator of the universe, has no physical incarnation, and without which, observations are obviously pointless. Hence, whatever physical phenomenon anybody discovers anywhere, Abrahamic religion is adamant that it will not be a physical incarnation of God, because God is not a physical object or a physical being.
Scientific experiments are exclusively about physical inputs that produce physical outputs. How do you reconcile that with the rule that God does not have a physical incarnation? How could the scientific method ever be able to reach the answer to this question?
Quoting leo
They assume the existence of a problem, i.e. the mismatch between total matter and total gravitation. These things have a physical incarnation. God does not have a physical incarnation and cannot be reached by experimentally testing anything in a laboratory. Seriously, you will not find a physical God by using a telescope or any other device for observation. All of that is contrary to religion itself. Looking for God in a physical way with devices that measure physical things would just be some kind of heresy.
Honestly I don't think this is a valid distinction. Here you are basically saying that fundamental physics isn't science.
A theory is basically: predictions = theoretical_function ( past observations )
When you carry out an experiment to test a theory, you test whether the predictions of the theory match what you observe.
In your example you have: quantity of sodium acetate created = theoretical_function ( quantities of vinegar and baking soda that are mixed )
That's a predictive model all the same. In Newton's gravitation you have: gravitational acceleration = theoretical_function ( mass, distance). You can't really control the mass of a planet but you can check whether that function works for various masses and distances. Which is what you are doing in your example, you check whether the function works for various quantities of vinegar and baking soda. I honestly don't see why you make a difference.
Quoting alcontali
As I said, the difference in the stock market is that you don't have: stock price = theoretical_function ( past prices ). Well maybe such a function exists, but it depends on what people do and that's too complex, you can't predict everything that everyone is going to do, we don't have such a function. And if we did, and many people used it, then it would stop working because not everyone can win, if everyone is betting that it's gonna go up then deep pockets can crash the price and make people panic sell to buy back lower, if there are winners there has to be losers at some point. Technical analysis doesn't work because deep pockets know people use it and they use it against them, they want people to believe it works so they can steal their money.
The fact that we don't have a theoretical function that works well for the stock market or for predicting the weather precisely because there are too many variables involved, does not imply that there aren't theoretical functions that work well for some other things. A theoretical function is a predictive model, and your example with sodium acetate is a predictive model too: "if such quantity of vinegar is mixed with such quantity of baking soda then we get such quantity of sodium acetate". Another example is "if the Moon and the Sun are in such and such position then we get such and such tides at such and such location".
Quoting alcontali
They infer from observations that stars in galaxies move at a different velocity than their theoretical model predicts. That doesn't imply in any way that there is a lot of dark matter everywhere that we can't see. All that says is that observations don't match the predictions of the theory. Maybe there is a lot of invisible matter out there, or maybe the theory is simply not accurate?
I don't mind that they believe their theory is correct and that they're looking for invisible matter, my problem with these people is that they say again and again that a theory is 'unscientific' if it is not falsifiable, and they use the label 'unscientific' to dismiss and ridicule people, and what are they doing here? They're treating their 'scientific' theory as unfalsifiable! If the theory doesn't match observations, it's not that the theory is falsified, it's that there is invisible matter everywhere! If we can't find that matter after dozens of experiments and billions spent then we need to make more experiments! By their own criterion their theory is unscientific, yet they treat it as scientific. The double standard is my problem with these people, and the way they treat other theories they don't like and the people who believe in them or research them.
Quoting alcontali
You misunderstood me again. Some people believe that there cannot be life or even a universe without God, so to them, evidence of life or of the universe is evidence of God. My point is that this is no less scientific than saying that some particular observation is evidence of dark matter. In both cases, an observation is interpreted as evidence, in a way that suits the beliefs of the person doing the interpretation.
My problem then again, is when scientists say there is evidence of dark matter but not of God. What they are doing in saying that is pushing their own interpretation, as if it was any more valid than the interpretation of people who see God in life or in the universe. They push their interpretation as if it was objective, as if it couldn't be questioned, because it is Science and people ought to believe in Science, and if people don't believe in Science then they believe in fairy tales and it is fair to ridicule them. What they are doing is pushing their beliefs and trying to impose them onto the world.
Fundamental physics can be tested experimentally. If a hypothesis cannot at this point, then it is a topic of scientific research, in which they will make attempts to finally test it experimentally.
Topics in scientific research are not yet science. They are merely scientific hypotheses. Dark matter is such hypothesis with merely pending scientific status, awaiting the successful conclusion of the experiment that they need to justify the hypothesis as a fully-fledged theory.
Quoting leo
It is more than just a predictive model, because unlike the weather, you can also experimentally test it.
Quoting leo
Well no, you refuse to give them enough time to finally, successfully set up the experiment that will justify the hypothesis of black matter. The hypothesis is still in research, and does not have full scientific status, in absence of a successful experimental test.
Quoting leo
They have spent billions on trying to set up a successful experiment, but all attempts have failed up till now. The hypothesis is not unscientific. If an experimental test really exists that will justify it as a theory -- still to be discovered -- then it will have acquired full scientific status.
It does not make sense to reject scientific research trying to develop an experimental test, on grounds that it has not yet managed to develop such test. This should rather be a reason to look harder and not to stop looking. Seriously, what makes you believe that they should give up the search already?
Quoting leo
Scientist say that there is a calculation issue in their models. The total amount of visible matter and the total amount of gravitation are out of sync. There is too much gravitation, according to their models.
Maybe they should not call it "dark matter" but rather "calculated excess gravitation".
The claim that God has no physical incarnation is not a decision made by scientists, but simply part of religious doctrine. In absence of a physical incarnation, there cannot be physical evidence; which is a requirement for the scientific method. Hence, verifying the existence of God is not within reach of the scientific method.
The scientific method cannot determine if "1+1=2" because, as abstract language objects, numbers do not have any physical incarnation either. The proposition is provable, however, from number theory, by using the axiomatic method.
Again, demanding application of the scientific method where it does not apply, is called scientism:
Scientism is an ideology that promotes science as the only objective means by which society should determine normative and epistemological values. The term scientism is generally used critically, pointing to the cosmetic application of science in unwarranted situations not amenable to application of the scientific method or similar scientific standards.
With the scientific method not even applicable to numbers, why would it be applicable to every possible question? Why would anybody try to determine the existence of God using something like the scientific method?
If your only tool is a hammer, the whole world will soon start looking like a nail.
It seems like you're not making the effort to attempt to understand what I repeatedly try to explain as clearly as possible, so I'm not sure there is much point in continuing the discussion.
I gave examples where scientists say that dark matter exists, you keep saying that they treat it as a hypothesis. I explained why we can test predictive models (you know you can check whether it's sunny and compare that with what the weatherman said right?), you keep saying that we can't. I explained why experiments won't prove the existence of dark matter, even if they detect what they're trying to detect, you keep saying that they would. I explained why I don't mind that they research dark matter, I explained what bothers me with the scientific attitude, you keep implying that I said they should stop looking. I explained that some people see evidence of God in life or in the universe, that they see evidence of divine creation in what they see, just like some other people see evidence of invisible matter in the motion of stars, you keep ignoring it. I explained that theories cannot be verified, even Popper said that, you keep implying that the "scientific method" can verify theories. You're not replying to what I said, you're replying to your own mistaken idea of what I said. So unless you want to go back and think some more about what I am talking about, it's best to leave it at that, because we're just talking past each other.
The journalist whom you referred to is not a scientist.
He is just some kind of sycophant.
Furthermore, only when authoring experimental test reports, in which he reports on the experiments he has done, a person actually operates as scientist. There are no scientists outside the strict confines of experimental test reports.
That problem rarely occurs in Wikipedia, because they actively enforce their "no original research policy":
Wikipedia articles must not contain original research. The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist.[a] This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources. To demonstrate that you are not adding OR, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented. The prohibition against OR means that all material added to articles must be attributable to a reliable, published source, even if not actually attributed.
The persons you mentioned were not authoring an original experimental test report nor sticking to the requirements of a "no original research" policy. Therefore, the source was simply not reputable.
Furthermore, there was no reason to believe that these people had ever authored any original experimental test report. Therefore, on what grounds do you call them scientists?
Quoting leo
Of course, you can.
Still, that does not make any difference because you cannot freely choose the input to feed into the test. Without that ability, the test is not "experimental". Other people will not be able to reproduce the test either.
Quoting leo
I cannot guarantee that their scientific research efforts will yield a successful experiment. I never did. In fact, I do not even care, because I am personally not involved in these efforts.
Quoting leo
The scientific method can possibly handle the issue of invisible matter -- not sure -- but it cannot handle evidence of God, simply because God has no physical incarnation. That is an epistemic issue that you keep ignoring.
Quoting leo
Yes, the scientific method can verify scientific theories by experimentally testing them. Popper never said that scientific theories cannot be verified. It is not possible to prove scientific theories, but that is not even required in the scientific method. A scientific theory only needs to withstand repeated experimental testing.
Quoting leo
I reply from an epistemic point of view on what you said. The answer may not be what you expect, but that is again caused by a difference in epistemic views.
I have a number of objections to this...
1) it depends on the deity, some versions do interacti with or even encompass the physical. Nearly all have effects on the physical. Whatever, regardless of qualities, that science determines is real, gets called physical. It is a term with metaphysical baggage but not longer with content.
2) the physical is a placeholder term. Sure, theists have tended to be dualists, but since the physical now covers fields, massless particals, things in superpostion and potentially the rest of the multiverse, as some examples, theologians might say, oh, well, if you expand the physical to such things, then what we refer to as the spirit might well be part of something that you will one day call the physical.
3) it seems to me science sometimes deduces the presence of things that cannot be detected (now). The multiverse is believed by a large percentage of scientists despite us currently not being able to detect this, because it solves problems related to what seems like fine tuning and also retains determinism.
Well, other religions may have physical gods, but the Abrahamic ones, i.e. Rabbinic Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, clearly don't.
Quoting Coben
The creator of heavens and earth, in his capacity of first cause, is deemed to be the ultimate reason for every physical and non-physical effect in the universe. Therefore, extracting one such effect out of the many does not produce any interesting or useful information.
Quoting Coben
These things, no matter how small, are still physically observable in one way or another.
Quoting Coben
All long as their existence is treated as a hypothesis awaiting the production of a successful experiment that confirms it, there is nothing wrong with such hypothetical research subjects.
The journalists -- sycophants really -- who report on scientific research activity seem to be exceedingly inept at distinguishing between hypotheses and confirmed theories.
But they have interventionist gods, with interventions with physical effects. They also have communicative gods. Both these phenomena, should they be real, could potentially be tracked by scientific research. This is not me taking a stand on what the results will be.Quoting alcontali
Right, though see above. But further we really cannot predict what future science will decide was necessary for creation or what is indicated by, say, things prior to what we can now examine in the Big Inflation time period.Quoting alcontali
The phrase 'physically observable' contains a redundancy. Effects are detected. And 'things' are posited. What their qualities are keeps expanding. Or are not.Quoting alcontaliScientists, not just journalists, take as real things that have not been directly confirmed. They draw conclusions about what happens inside Black Holes due to relativity, since this holds in other places. Most astrophysicists believe in dark matter and energy because the effects have been observed. And in fact a lot of observations are observations of effects. We don't observe quarks or particles in superposition. We observe effects, sometimes effects of effects or machine interpretations of effects.
This would only be possible if God deterministically responded to a particular input with the same output. In that case, it would be a function. If you feed input I to God, the effect will be output O, i.e. O=f(I).
In that case, God would be a deterministic device.
Quoting Coben
A scientist is the author of an experimental test report in which he fed input I and received output O. If he did not receive output O, then his experiment has failed. If this person then still considers the hypothesis to be scientifically justified, then he is simply not a scientist.
The scientific method simply does not allow for claiming that a theory is justified in absence of successful experimental testing.
Quoting Coben
Black-hole conjectures have never been tested experimentally. At best, they belong to the epistemic domain of predictive modelling and not to science.
Quoting Coben
Astrophysics is also just predictive modelling and not science. It is simply not possible to back their hypotheses by experimental testing.
Quoting Coben
I am not familiar enough with very low-scale research to pinpoint what exactly in contemporary research is merely hypothesis and what has been properly confirmed by experimental testing.
Some researcher may deliberately confuse things, but in principle the concept of scientific status is easy: If you can confirm it by reproducible experimental testing, then the theory is scientifically justified. Otherwise, it is just a hypothesis, possibly awaiting successful experimental testing.
Not all scientific hypotheses will successfully be tested experimentally. Popularity of the hypothesis really does not matter in that regard. It really does not matter to the status of the hypothesis how many people believe that the hypothesis will be successfully tested in the future. Such imaginary experimental test results should not be taken into account.
See, I find all this extremely speculative. But even nere their might be facets that are predictable in the ways that intelligence responses are predictable, but not mechanical. And of course there is no reason to argue that God, say, is not deterministic in the complicated sense that we are. IOW he would, say, respond to prayers for intervention when the attitude was of the kind God is looking for. Or some other pattern that indicates the criteria of what could only be consider an intelligent and in this case vastly powerful other - who could create anomolies in what we call natural laws. And all this is just me speculating possibility. Sitting around and saying we can rule out what science could possibly detect and decide is confirmed, is as problematic as a scientist in early enlightenment ruling out what we could detect and corfirm now.Quoting alcontali
Here's an article by physicists on why dark matter is considered to existt due to the effects it has. I suggest you tell them that they are not scientists.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-dark-matter-theory-or/
Earlier you expressed the possibility, merely, that scientists would be able to determine there was dark matter and energy. But in fact a majority consider it real and have written papers on in it in rigorous scientific journals.Quoting alcontali
They observe effects. They don't observe things in all cases. There are many things considered real that we cannot observe. In fact it can be argue that all observation is observing effects and using deduction - thinking of this as a philosopy forum and issues relating to perception. So, sure they need something they can track but not necessarily at all the ding an sich. We could deduce the existence of an intelligent alien species without ever observing them. We could be many, many effects away from something to decide it exists. Yes, scientists need patterns of effects to work with. I can't see how we can rule out that this would never be the case with a deity.
If a theologian says, God will never let his effects be noticed or tracked, then that theologian's idea of God is one that I can't imagine scientists could ever think they have confirmed. A deist God would certainly be very hard, though perhaps there would be 'archeological' indications in cosmology that something intelligent made everything. Of course perhaps that would have been an AI.
But to rule out scientists deciding there is a deity, it seems to me is making a very strong metaphysical claim and also a claim about an ability to encompass both future finds in the universe and the make up of the unvierse and future scientists abilities.
I think all talk of what science will never be able to find is intuitive. Which is fine, if one's intuition is really good, and given the topic rather remarkable given the dearth of good training or evolutionary need for ths kind of predictive intuition about future knowledge.
Yes, but just the title sounds already impossibly inept: "Is dark matter theory or fact?" I am not even going to read it. Furthermore, this article is not an experimental test report. Hence, it engages in "original research" without backing every word they say with experimental test reports. These people are simply not serious.
I do not deny (or confirm) that there is unexplained, excess gravitation that can be observed through its effects on observable matter. I do not deny that it could be interesting to design experiments that would further shed light on the problem. In the meanwhile, however, we must considered any explanation for this "calculated excess gravity" to be hypothetical.
Further research could even discover that there is actually something wrong with existing calculation rules. Why not?
Quoting Coben
According to Abrahamic religious rules, God has no physical incarnation. Therefore, God cannot be tracked down by conducting a search for his physical presence. Hence, the scientific method cannot possibly apply. Furthermore, I personally see no value in furthering that kind of heresies.
Precisely. Because test reports do not explain how physicist think in general. And in the mainstream astrophysicist position is that there is dark matter and dark energy. They are a mass of reports that lead them to these conclusions. What I was addressing was your confusion about 'observations' and also presenting how scientists, in that field think. But you consider anyone who disagrees with you about dark matter and energy as non-scientists. Good luck with that.
They probably did not pick the title, but they are physicists explaining why something not directly observed is consider confirmed. There is consensus that dark matter exists in astrophysics. Quoting alcontaliI already addressed this issue. In a couple of ways. But now you repeat an opinion from an earlier post of yours. Snore.Quoting alcontaliWell, pass that on to the astrophysics community.Quoting alcontali
Oh, heavens, you mean that a scientific position might need to be revised in the future? Any postion that might need to be revised in the future, well that just ain't science. There are so many entities and processes that scientific theories now include that are not directly observable. in fact that whole line of reasoning in my earlier posts you just ignore.
But you go ahead and act like it is knowledge that science will never be able to take a position on God. Let me know when you find the test reports on that. (and yes, I know, you think you've ruled it out using deduction. But since your defense of your deduction here is mere repetition of your opinion without addressing my points, consider the possibility you are just speculating wildly. Stringent, you think with others, free to make stuff up yourself) I'll leave your posting style to others to interact with.
There's a direct link to test research at the end of this article...
https://phys.org/news/2019-04-dark-alternate-explanations.html
The (Abrahamic) theological argument is that God does not have a physical incarnation.
Therefore, anything that has a physical incarnation cannot be the creator of the heavens and the earth.
Hence, yes, I maintain my position that the epistemic domain of science, which requires physical observation, cannot take a position on the matter.
Quoting Coben
Which point did I not address? In my opinion, we should simply agree to disagree.
Seriously? The Scientific American article was written by physicists Rhett Herman and Shane L. Larson, they both have numerous published papers in reputable scientific research journals.
The NASA page was written by Marc Rayman, mission director at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, chief engineer for NASA's Dawn mission, who has authored numerous scientific publications, go tell him he isn't a scientist?
You prefer to read scientific papers directly? Here, three papers I've found in under one minute, written by scientists:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1201.3942 : From astronomical observations, we know that dark matter exists
https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.10630 : In our view, the presence of dark matter in and around galaxies is a well-established fact
https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.01840 : Over the past few decades, a consensus picture has emerged in which roughly a quarter of the universe consists of dark matter
Go tell them that Wikipedia is a more reputable source.
Quoting alcontali
This is wrong on so many levels. An experiment is the testing of a hypothesis. What reputable source do you have to show that if the 'input' of the test cannot be chosen freely then it isn't an experiment?
The model: gravitational acceleration = theoretical_function ( mass, distance ), can be tested for various masses and various distances, so even in that predictive model the input can be chosen freely. It can be reproduced by other people too.
And I argued extensively how the criterion of reproducibility is not applied consistently by scientists, but you're just ignoring that.
What you are doing is applying your own definition and own criteria of what science is and what it isn't, and scientists mostly disagree with your criteria. Which is just more evidence of what I've been saying all along, that people decide for themselves what they call science and what they call non-science. But don't believe that your own personal criteria have universal validity.
Quoting alcontali
What you also didn't do is understand what I was saying, which is that even if their experiments are 'successful', they would not prove the existence of dark matter.
Quoting alcontali
No, what you keep ignoring is that for people who believe that God created the world, evidence of the world is evidence of God.
Quoting alcontali
Yes he did, you just didn't understand him if you even read him. Why do you keep pretending you know what you are talking about? Here is an excerpt from your favorite reputable source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verificationism
Popper regarded scientific hypotheses to be unverifiable
Popper, who had long claimed to have killed verificationism
[i]From astronomical observations, we know that dark matter exists, makes up 23% of the mass budget of the Universe, clusters strongly to form the load-bearing frame of structure for galaxy formation, and hardly interacts with ordinary matter except gravitationally. However, this information is not enough to identify the particle specie(s) that make up dark matter. As such, the problem of determining the identity of dark matter has largely shifted to the fields of astroparticle and particle physics. In this talk, I will review the current status of the search for the nature of dark matter.
Given the absence of detections in those experiments, I will advocate a return of the problem of dark-matter identification to astronomy,[/i]
"Dark Matter" means "calculated excess amount of gravitation in current model of universe". This calculated excess "exists" in a sense that you can observe total gravitation and calculate the excess part.
Quoting leo
Wikipedia does not contain original research. It is supposed to only refer to externally-published research. Do you have any reason to believe that they are guilty of original research concerning dark matter?
Quoting leo
[i]A controlled science experiment is setup to test whether a variable has a direct causal relationship on another.
Identify your independent and dependent variables. The independent variable is commonly known as the cause, while the dependent variable is the effect. For example, in the statement A causes B, A is the independent variable and B is the dependent. A controlled scientific experiment can only measure one variable at a time. If more than one variable is manipulated, it is impossible to say for certain which caused the end result and the experiment is invalidated.[/i]
Quoting leo
It is a well-known problem that quite a bit of published research is in fact not reproducible. Well, quite a bit of that research is undoubtedly deemed so uninteresting by others that nobody even tries.
Quoting leo
I think I actually made it clear what my possibly original idea is: to only consider theories backed by controlled experiments only, and no longer consider mere predictive modelling, to be science.
Quoting leo
Up till now, it is only you who seems to disagree. I do not believe that anybody else has ever looked into the matter.
Quoting leo
The full quote is:
Popper regarded scientific hypotheses to be unverifiable, as well as not "confirmable" under Carnap's thesis.
[i]Types of verification
Ayer distinguishes between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ verification, noting that there is a limit to how conclusively a proposition can be verified. ‘Strong’ (fully conclusive) verification is not possible for any empirical proposition, because the validity of any proposition always depends upon further experience. ‘Weak’ (probable) verification, on the other hand, is possible for any empirical proposition.[/i]
To verify under Carnap's thesis means 'strong' verification, which means 'proof' in proof theory, while 'weak' verification means experimental testing. By the way, Carnap later on abandoned verificationism and the requirement of 'strong' verification:
In 1936, Carnap sought a switch from verification to confirmation. Carnap's confirmability criterion (confirmationism) would not require conclusive verification (thus accommodating for universal generalizations) but allow for partial testability to establish "degrees of confirmation" on a probabilistic basis. Carnap never succeeded in formalizing his thesis despite employing abundant logical and mathematical tools for this purpose. In all of Carnap's formulations, a universal law's degree of confirmation is zero.
In the context of verificationism, it is needed to clarify if "to verify" is meant as "strong" or "weak". Furthermore, I do not believe that the verificationist vocabulary is still in use.
Verificationism has been replaced a long time ago by falsificationism:
Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery proposed falsificationism as a criterion under which scientific hypothesis would be tenable. Falsificationism would allow hypotheses expressed as universal generalizations, such as "all swans are white", to be provisionally true until falsified by evidence, in contrast to verificationism under which they would be disqualified immediately as meaningless.
No it does not in the mind of most scientists working on that subject, by dark matter they mean matter, as in something made of particles, I mean for god's sake just look at the quote you posted right above, they're talking about identifying dark matter through particle physics, that means matter, why do you keep pushing your own flawed interpretation of what they say?
Quoting alcontali
Wikipedia articles are not only made of quotes from externally-published research. People who edit the articles paraphrase what they've read, they add their own interpretation, they decide what information to include and how that information is presented, Wikipedia articles are not neutral reports of original research written by researchers.
Now regarding the article concerning dark matter, it directly contradicts your position: the existence of dark matter is generally accepted by the scientific community. By that they mean the existence of matter, not the mere existence of a "calculated excess amount of gravitation". How long are you gonna keep digging that hole? When they say matter they mean matter.
Quoting alcontali
I asked you for a reputable source showing that if the 'input' of a test cannot be chosen freely then that test isn't an experiment (which is what you claimed).
That "sciencing.com" website is a reputable source how? The article you linked was written by an anonymous contributor on a non-reputable website, and then you argue that articles written by practicing physicists on Scientific American and on the NASA website are not reputable sources?
Then that passage you quoted doesn't imply in any way that "if we can't freely choose the input of a test then that test isn't an experiment".
Quoting alcontali
Yes, which is applying your own criterion defining what is science and what isn't science.
Now, I agree in principle that experiments where all variables except one are controlled give more robust tests than experiments where a bunch of variables change simultaneously, because indeed given enough variables we can always find spurious correlations that wouldn't be there in other situations.
But the fundamental problem with this criterion is that you're never controlling all variables except one, and you cannot know that you're controlling all variables except one, so there is no strictly controlled experiment, and then your criterion is not precise but fuzzy. Who gets to decide whether an experiment is controlled enough to be considered as a "controlled experiment"?
For instance you were claiming that based on this criterion Newton's theory of gravitation would not be scientific because you can't control planets individually, but that the theory according to which mixing vinegar and baking soda gives rise to sodium acetate would be scientific. But by your criterion that latter theory isn't scientific either, because there will always be some variables that weren't controlled in that experiment: the time of day or year, the temperature or pressure surrounding the mix, the molecular composition of the surrounding air, the gravity in the frame of the laboratory, the electric charge of the vinegar or baking soda, the volumes of vinegar and baking soda, the surroundings of the laboratory, the instruments and tests that determined that the ingredients are vinegar and baking soda, ...
Even if you control some of these you can't control them all, you're making assumptions as to what requires control and what does not, what is a possibly dependent variable and what isn't, which in the end amounts to deciding whether a theory is scientific not based on your criterion but based on your own assumptions and beliefs and desires.
Quoting alcontali
Plenty of people over the centuries have looked into finding criteria that would distinguish science from non-science, but these criteria always fail in some way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem
The only criterion that seems to always apply is that people do not classify something as science based on a precise objective criterion but based on their own assumptions/beliefs/desires. This implies that 'science' doesn't have a position of authority in itself, it's only people who attempt to confer a position of authority to ideas that suit them by calling them 'scientific'.
Quoting alcontali
You're misinterpreting that quote, it says two different things. The first thing is that Popper regarded scientific hypotheses as unverifiable. The second thing is that Popper regarded scientific hypotheses as not confirmable (in the sense of confirmation that Carnap introduced).
Quoting alcontali
That's again your own flawed interpretation, nowhere it says that "Carnap's thesis" has anything to do with Ayer's 'strong' and 'weak' verifications.
Besides, here is what that Wikipedia article on Ayer's book says: Ayer himself later rejected much of his own work. Fifty years after he wrote his book, he said: 'Logical positivism died a long time ago. I don’t think much of Language, Truth and Logic is true ... it is full of mistakes.'
Quoting alcontali
No, look at what that very quote says. Even if you were to associate Carnap's confirmation criterion with Ayer's weak verification (probable verification), the quote says: In all of Carnap's formulations, a universal law's degree of confirmation is zero, and that degrees of confirmation are established on a probabilistic basis, which implies that a universal law is not even verified in the 'weak' sense. In the 'strong' sense we can't say that a universal law is conclusively verified, and in the 'weak' sense we can't even say that it is probably verified.
Quoting alcontali
Popper introduced the criterion of falsification because he believed that theories cannot be verified in any way (neither in the 'strong' nor 'weak' sense), because of the problem of induction.
Falsificationism is still trendy in scientific circles but it is flawed just like verificationism, as Feyerabend and Lakatos explained. An observation can never be said to falsify a theory, because it is always possible to save the theory from falsification, by assuming that there is an additional phenomenon that is responsible for the difference between observation and theory.
As an example, again, observations that didn't fit the predictions of the theory of general relativity didn't falsify that theory, because an invisible matter was invoked to make up for the difference, and it's always possible to do that. If an observation doesn't match the theory, invoke some invisible phenomenon, and the theory is not falsified. Which makes the criterion of falsification flawed just like the others.
What's science and what isn't science isn't decided by some precise criterion, it is decided by people based on their assumptions/beliefs/desires, to promote the ideas they like and dismiss the ones they don't like.
They are trying to do that, but this approach has not succeeded until now.
Quoting leo
There is the Wikipedia no original research and neutral point of view policies and then there are the practical results visible in their pages.
If you detect a violation of these policies, you can report them to the editors in the "talk" metapage for the page.
Quoting leo
The research paper clearly underlines that they have not been able to identify what kind of particle it would consist of. If it is matter, then there is a requirement to disclose that. This has not been possible at this point. Therefore, the phenomenon is only matter-like; assuming the standard model in which it is matter that causes gravitation. Note that this is yet another hypothesis that cannot be tested experimentally.
Quoting leo
The term "verify" is common language, and therefore, highly ambiguous. In my opinion, it is not suitable as a technical term.
Outside the very narrow context of verificationism, it means probabilistic sampling for counterexamples, with no pretension that it would constitute full or fail-safe proof. Therefore, "experimentally testing" is a suitable synonym for "verifying" in the context of falsificationism.
Quoting leo
Yes, but "invisible matter" is still a cutting-edge research topic in search for more concrete results.
That's not the point. The point is in their view the existence of dark matter particles is a fact, not a hypothesis. What's a hypothesis in their view is what kind of particles dark matter is made of, what are the properties of these particles. You kept saying they see the existence of dark matter as a hypothesis, that's wrong.
And, again, their concluding that dark matter exists from observations they've made is the same as other people concluding that God exists because they believe God created the world.
When scientists say that they can infer from observations that dark matter exists but not that God exists, that's a double standard. They push the existence of dark matter as a fact, and the existence of God as unknowable or false. In other words they push the existence of dark matter as more certain than the existence of God. That's not a conclusion that follows from observations, they are simply pushing their belief as fact.
When scientists say what the universe is made of, they're not providing a world view that is more certain or more probable than others. Yet that world view is taught in schools as if it was fact, as if it was more certain than other world views. Science has become the religion of the modern age.
Quoting alcontali
I don't see how it is ambiguous, the common language is the common dictionary definition: make sure or demonstrate that (something) is true. We never make sure that theories are true.
Quoting alcontali
That's not a very narrow context, that's a context in which theories evolved for centuries, and even today many scientists still believe they can verify theories.
Quoting alcontali
You're making up your own definitions as you go. In the context of falsificationism, experimentally testing that a theory's prediction matches an observation precisely does not verify the theory in any way, nor does testing where the theory doesn't match observations. If you keep going like this you're gonna end up saying that verification is a suitable synonym for falsification.
Also, even if you test a theory a million times, you can't even say that it is probably true, because you don't know how probable it is that it's not going to suddenly stop working tomorrow.
If you still think that we can know that a theory is probably true you're failing to see the problem with falsificationism. It is precisely because a theory can always be saved from falsification (by invoking unseen phenomena) that we can always explain a given set of observations or experimental tests in terms of many different theories.
Regarding the motion of stars in galaxies, we can say they move that way because of dark matter, or because gravitation is not suitably described by general relativity, or because we have the illusion they move that way because their redshift is not due to their velocity, or because God is choosing to make them move that way, or because we live in a simulation and its programmers want to mess with our observations, or because space is folded in such a way that it makes them seem move that way, or because they are not stars in galaxies but lights in the sky, or because it's an optical illusion, or because we are hallucinating, or because ...
All these theories can be made consistent with observations, so we can't say any of them is probably true. Observations cannot verify these theories and they cannot falsify them either. People simply pick a framework they like and attempt to fit observations into that framework. Saying that one framework is more true than others is a belief, not an inference from observations.
It may be your kids, but that does not mean that you have a say in what the ruling elite's indoctrination machine will teach them. The populace gave up that right when they implicitly agreed to compulsory schooling schemes in State-run indoctrination factories, to be paid by extracting the money upfront out of the parents' wallets.
The current type of government naturally emerges out of the population's take on what government is supposed to be. If the population believes that the government should have wide-ranging power to coerce other people, that is exactly what will emerge out of the fray.
By catering to the populace's false belief in scientism, the ruling elite successfully manages to transfer even more authority from the family to themselves.
In my opinion, the population in the West consists of the dumbest idiots that have ever walked the face of the earth.
Yes, at last we've found something where I wholeheartedly agree with you :)
"Verify" is no more common or uncommon than "falsify". :chin: :chin: :chin:
Ok. Point conceded. The verificationists, i.e. the Logical positivists within the Vienna Circle, have managed to taint the term so badly that it now carries too much baggage:
It was unified by the aim of making philosophy scientific with the help of modern logic.
They were obviously deeply mired in the heresy of scientism and clearly beyond salvation ...
I'm a strict traditionalist in this. Burn the witches!!! :up:
I have become one.