When it's okay to consider something false..

[DRBUZZ0]

I don't mean this to make me the authority on science or logic, but I get a lot of people who say "Oh you can't disprove that." or "How can you ever be sure." Thus, I'll take out the thinking for these folks and come up with the criteria for presuming something is not the case.

If these are met, you may consider a claim X to be false until proven otherwise and you will be justified in this conclusion. Why? Because I say so, and most people who need this sort of hand-holding only need someone to say something, so I'll just go out and do the thinking for them.

Anyone who thinks I am missing something or need something please contribute.

Claim X can be considered false if:

1. X has never been proven or practically and effectively proven by imperial evidence or a preponderance of evidence from observation.

2. Studies, experiments or investigations of X have been done but no reproducible, well documented and reliable evidence has gotten any real or substantive evidence. Many studies which are "Inconclusive but found some interesting results that indicate that maybe..." Don't count either...

3. The evidence produced is, at best, shaky, subjective, anecdotal or very poorly recorded. The "evidence" can be explained by other possibilities, such as bad photography conditions, human error, mistakes in observations, electrical interference...

4. It does not fit into and would not be predicted by existing, well established and tested theory. This does not necessarily mean it is excluded by existing theory.

For example, telepathic communications implies that there must be some, as yet unknown, mechanism for transmitting and receiving information through some, as yet unknown, medium. Because it is not seem to be electromagnetic (such could be detected) and all other affects can be similarly excluded, it would need to be something undetectable by any known means and operating outside the known mechanisms of biology and the brain.
(this is just one example)


5. If followed to it's logical end, X begins to conflict with many established theories or has illogical implications.

For example: If humans have a biological orra, and so do other life forms, then it implies there is some sort of field exclusive to life. Does this field go when the organism as a while dies? or when all the cells in the organism die? Do microbes have this field? It must be caused by a biochemical reaction, if it is true of all life. But which one? It would need to be a reaction exclusive to life, but most can be done outside of life, on their own in a more simplistic form....
(this example is not entirely the best, but it's only one example of how, if followed through, the implications become more and more extreme)


6. It's proponents cannot produce any consistent, logical and well-reasoned argument for X's existence.

For example, many dowsers say it is an electromagnetic field, but cannot explain why it would change the ground conditions in a way distinguishable from other underground structures. Others claim they could dowse for human remains or lots evidence, which implies this is not the case. Some say they can dowse by a map which doesn't seem to fit at all with the idea that dowsing is done on the spot.

Another example: Astrology supports may claim that there is an affect on earth by celestial bodies but will give very imprecise or pseudo-scientific reasons why this would result in consistent and predictable trends.



7. The belief in X can be attributed to logical and well-grounded possibilities, such as it was beneficial to a previous society to encourage certain things or it provided a good explanation for something or something as simple as.

For example: "Mars is a bright planet that moves around and is red. People think of blood being red so mars might be thought to have something to do with blood letting." Or "Death as non-existence is somewhat difficult to understand and the idea that one no longer is in existence seems counter-intuitive and uncomfortable."





If these criteria are met I would consider it absolutely logical and acceptable to consider the X claim to be false. The degree of confidence would be extremely high if these were all very strongly met, such as if studies had been done in many ways over many years and many investigators had attempted to prove X and failed. In that case, X is, for all intents and purposes, disproven.



In many ways this is based on the logic of Occam's Razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor), however many people seem to either not understand Occam's Razor or misunderstand it to mean "The simplest explanation is right." They therefore assume that since "God did it" is simple it would fit. However for this you have to make far more assumptions than "God exists" you also have to assume all the implications of this and explain such things as where god came from, all the paradoxes it presents etc etc...


Hence here it is spelled out more explicitly and with as little ambiguity as I can reasonably come up with. Most of the thinking is done.

four and five seem to kinda be getting at the same thing... but this is what I have thus far as justification for presumption that something is not so.

Anyone see anything missing or problems? Does this seem reasonable?

[Lensman]

...imperial evidence...

Which empire would this evidence come from? ;)

(should be empirical :p )

Other than the incorrect spelling & such, it seems ok to me.

[DRBUZZ0]

crap. Firefox spell check must have clicked the wrong one. Yeah. I proof before I publish sorry

[Lensman]

No sweat, it was comprehensible - unlike a lot I see on various forums (fora?).

(Your avatar looks like a young version of the late Ronnie Barker!)

[JoeTheJuggler]

Also, under your Number 5, you must mean "aura" not "orra".

Edit: By the way, I would think you could assume a claim is false if you had any 2 or 3 of these points. In other words, I don't think you need to reserve judgment if 1) there's no empirical evidence and 2) the claim is illogical.

Another proofreading catch: in 5 and 6. you have "it's" instead of "its".

[casebro]

I thought 's was used to denote either posessive (Casebro's computer) or as a contraction of 'it is' or 'it has'. 'Its' is plural, many its.

"It's logical end" and "It's proponents" seem fine by me, as posessives.

[Jeff Corey]

I thought 's was used to denote either posessive (Casebro's computer) or as a contraction of 'it is' or 'it has'. 'Its' is plural, many its.

"It's logical end" and "It's proponents" seem fine by me, as posessives.

No. "It's" means "it is". The correct form is "Its logical end" and "Its proponents".
But I only get paid to correct this stuff with my students. Feel free to use "Its' " or "tit's" whenever you want. Makes me no nevermind.

[Wolfman]

At least some of these criteria seem valid only if you have the actual means available to test/confirm such theories. In the absence of such means, it may not be a valid criteria for determining something to be false:
I don't mean this to make me the authority on science or logic, but I get a lot of people who say "Oh you can't disprove that." or "How can you ever be sure." Thus, I'll take out the thinking for these folks and come up with the criteria for presuming something is not the case.

If these are met, you may consider a claim X to be false until proven otherwise and you will be justified in this conclusion. Why? Because I say so, and most people who need this sort of hand-holding only need someone to say something, so I'll just go out and do the thinking for them.

Anyone who thinks I am missing something or need something please contribute.

Claim X can be considered false if:

1. X has never been proven or practically and effectively proven by imperial evidence or a preponderance of evidence from observation.
Okay...consider earthquakes, and two competing theories as to their cause. One theory is that they're caused by angry gods/spirits; the other is that they're caused by slowly moving continental plates. Now, take us backwards a few thousand years, take away all modern tools we have to study and measure such a phenomena.

Empirically speaking, when there's an earthquake, if I believe it is an act of gods/spirits, and I make sacrifices to appease those gods, and the earthquakes then stop...it would seem at least plausible that my theory was correct. On the other hand, if someone tried to prove tectonics, it would not only seem insane, but entirely impossible to either predict or prove. By this criteria, using your "rules", it would seem to me that the false theory would be more likely judged "true", and the true theory discarded as "false".
2. Studies, experiments or investigations of X have been done but no reproducible, well documented and reliable evidence has gotten any real or substantive evidence. Many studies which are "Inconclusive but found some interesting results that indicate that maybe..." Don't count either...There are numerous aspects of quantum theory -- predictions of certain particles, phenomena, etc. -- that have not been confirmed or verified in any manner whatsoever; while not considered empirically "true", neither are they dismissed as "false" simply because we cannot cause those particles/phenomenon to manifest themselves. Instead, we assume that we simply lack the means to produce them with current technology.

This does not demonstrate that such predictions are "true" or "false"; it only demonstrates that using this as a sole criteria for "falseness" would not seem valid.
3. The evidence produced is, at best, shaky, subjective, anecdotal or very poorly recorded. The "evidence" can be explained by other possibilities, such as bad photography conditions, human error, mistakes in observations, electrical interference...For a long, long time stories of giant squids were dismissed by most of the scientific community as anecdotal, on par with stories such as the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot. No photos existed (or were very poor quality), stories of encounters could never be verified, no physical remains were found.

But, voila...turns out, the giant squid is very much real and alive. Thus, again, the judgment that this was "false" was, itself, entirely wrong; lack of evidence does not demonstrate that something is not true.
4. It does not fit into and would not be predicted by existing, well established and tested theory. This does not necessarily mean it is excluded by existing theory. Again, take us back just a few hundred years, when "well established and tested theories" were, in fact, wrong. Many truths were ignored or dismissed, simply because they didn't fit with "established truth".

Is anyone here ready to state that our knowledge of the world today is complete enough that we can state that anything that doesn't fit our "established truths" must be false?
5. If followed to it's logical end, X begins to conflict with many established theories or has illogical implications.Try to take quantum theory and demonstrate or prove it to people 500 years ago. It would fly blatantly in the face of established theories, and many of its conclusions would be considered grossly illogical (in fact, even today, many people have problems understanding the 'logic' of the subatomic world, where many phenomena seem entirely counterintuitive).

6. It's proponents cannot produce any consistent, logical and well-reasoned argument for X's existence. Again, try to present a consistent, logical, and well-reasoned argument for quantum physics to someone 500 years ago. The entire scientific community would dismiss you as a quack.

Now, before I be accused of somehow defending the woo community at large, and saying that claims of supernatural phenomenon should be on par with claims about quantum physics ("We just don't have the means to understand/measure such phenomenon at present"), that is not my argument at all. I would say that your criteria have at least some merit...but that they are not terribly useful if used individually. Rather, they should be used in combination with each other.

And, as in the case of things such as the giant squid, or quantum physics, at one point in history people would have been well justified in dismissing such beliefs/theories as false!! That doesn't mean that they were false, and we must always be ready/willing to re-evaluate and re-shape our world views as we gain new knowledge, and new tools for observing/measuring the world around us.

"Not proven" (or even "impossible to prove") and "false" are entirely different animals.

[Jeff Corey]

Like Wegener's continental drift theory. There were so many scientists who were not given tenure because they thought it deserving of consideration. And the psychologists who got the same treatment because they taught Freud was manure. And today, cognitive scientists (a real oxymoron) want to purge their departments of behaviorists,
So it goes.

[DRBUZZ0]

I thought 's was used to denote either posessive (Casebro's computer) or as a contraction of 'it is' or 'it has'. 'Its' is plural, many its.

"It's logical end" and "It's proponents" seem fine by me, as posessives.

I am aware that "its" means possession and "it's" means "it is" and yet I make that mistake constantly

[DRBUZZ0]

At least some of these criteria seem valid only if you have the actual means available to test/confirm such theories. In the absence of such means, it may not be a valid criteria for determining something to be false:

Okay...consider earthquakes, and two competing theories as to their cause. One theory is that they're caused by angry gods/spirits; the other is that they're caused by slowly moving continental plates. Now, take us backwards a few thousand years, take away all modern tools we have to study and measure such a phenomena.

Empirically speaking, when there's an earthquake, if I believe it is an act of gods/spirits, and I make sacrifices to appease those gods, and the earthquakes then stop...it would seem at least plausible that my theory was correct. On the other hand, if someone tried to prove tectonics, it would not only seem insane, but entirely impossible to either predict or prove. By this criteria, using your "rules", it would seem to me that the false theory would be more likely judged "true", and the true theory discarded as "false".
There are numerous aspects of quantum theory -- predictions of certain particles, phenomena, etc. -- that have not been confirmed or verified in any manner whatsoever; while not considered empirically "true", neither are they dismissed as "false" simply because we cannot cause those particles/phenomenon to manifest themselves. Instead, we assume that we simply lack the means to produce them with current technology.




If the earthquakes stopped after a sacrifice that would hardly be proof of anything. If you could demonstrate that the sacrafice stopped earthquakes reliably in many instances and that not making a sacrafice consistantly lead to the earthquakes not stopping or having a marked reduction in probability. Then it would be some evidence.






And, as in the case of things such as the giant squid, or quantum physics, at one point in history people would have been well justified in dismissing such beliefs/theories as false!! That doesn't mean that they were false, and we must always be ready/willing to re-evaluate and re-shape our world views as we gain new knowledge, and new tools for observing/measuring the world around us.

"Not proven" (or even "impossible to prove") and "false" are entirely different animals.

Do you realize that each of these has an implied "logical and statement" between them?

Quantum theory does not meet all these criteria because it's founders can explain how it is derived mathematically. It can also be demonstrated necessary.

The giant squid might come close, but again it doesn't meet all these criteria because it fits perfectly well with understandings of oceanology and it does not necessarily have illogical final implications.

The squid one might reasonably be called "unlikely" or "probably false" because it could be on the line of some of the criteria and the evidence is shaky.

But to be false with a high degree of confidence requires them all being met very completely and strongly.

If they are not all met, this doesn't make it true, but it means it may have merit to it.

[Corpse Cruncher]

When there is a margin of doubt, no matter how small; then something can not be fully testified as false etc. However, if 90% of evidence points to a conclusive then that should be recognised but not as an absolute.

[DRBUZZ0]

When there is a margin of doubt, no matter how small; then something can not be fully testified as false etc. However, if 90% of evidence points to a conclusive then that should be recognised but not as an absolute.


You recognize that this is pretty thorough in that it basically addressees things with zero evidence for them and lots of reasons to think they are not? I mean lots and lots?

if there is abolutely no evidence, it has been investigated over and over, it's proponents are not even consistant and it is not predicted or expected and furtherore is just not logical.... that.... is only 90%?

[Wolfman]

Do you realize that each of these has an implied "logical and statement" between them?
You know what they say about assumptions -- it was not at all clear to me whether you were "implying" that just one argument must be met; or that a combination of a two or three must be met; or that all seven must be met. That was partly the purpose for my post.
But to be false with a high degree of confidence requires them all being met very completely and strongly.

If they are not all met, this doesn't make it true, but it means it may have merit to it.
Okay, so now you've clarified...a theory must meet ALL those criteria in order to have a high degree of confidence. Just to continue playing the devil's advocate here...let's go back to the earthquake situation, and take a civilization from a few thousand years ago, let's say in ancient Greece. Two men appear in a public debate, one arguing that earthquakes are caused by gods, the other arguing that earthquakes are caused by the movement of massive continental plates.
1. X has never been proven or practically and effectively proven by imperial evidence or a preponderance of evidence from observation.
GODS -- It has been observed that, in many cases, after giving sacrifices, earthquakes have ceased. In some cases, this has not worked, but it could be because our sacrifices were not adequate.

PLATES -- Well, sorry guys...I can't really show the plates to you, nor can I think of any way to prove that they exist. You'll just have to take my word for it, because it sounds like a really good theory.

WINNER -- Gods. They don't have absolute proof, but they have more of a preponderance of evidence than the Plates guy does.
2. Studies, experiments or investigations of X have been done but no reproducible, well documented and reliable evidence has gotten any real or substantive evidence. Many studies which are "Inconclusive but found some interesting results that indicate that maybe..." Don't count either...
GODS -- Again, we've found that in a high number of cases, when we've offered sacrifices, earthquakes have stopped, at least for some period of time. This has been observed and documented by everyone here, and by our ancestors through hundreds/thousands of years. Given this fact, testing by refusing to offer sacrifices would seem irresponsible in the extreme; since if our theory is correct, and we do not give sacrifices, it will cause more earthquakes, and more pain and suffering for our people. In the absence of significant verifiable proof for an alternate theory, there is no reason to assume our theory is wrong, and certainly no reason to risk the lives/health of our citizenry to further prove our hypothesis.

PLATES -- Well, I'll admit, there's not really any test you can do to verify my theory, and I cannot show you any proof of it at all.

WINNER -- Gods. Again, they haven't proven their theory absolutely, but can offer more evidence -- and actual case studies -- for it than the Plates guy can.
3. The evidence produced is, at best, shaky, subjective, anecdotal or very poorly recorded. The "evidence" can be explained by other possibilities, such as bad photography conditions, human error, mistakes in observations, electrical interference...
GODS -- It is true that there could be other causes; but we have an extensive written history which documents our forebears' actual meetings with gods, and communications from gods. And it is far from anecdotal -- Last year, we had earthquakes, and after we offered sacrifices, the earthquakes stopped. Everyone here was present at that time, and witnessed this.

PLATES -- It is true that there are other possible causes of earthquakes; and unfortunately, I can't even offer any real evidence of my own theory.

WINNER -- Gods. Their evidence is far from conclusive, and could be explained by other theories, but still has more going for it than the Plates theory does.
4. It does not fit into and would not be predicted by existing, well established and tested theory. This does not necessarily mean it is excluded by existing theory.
GODS -- The existence of the gods, and their interaction with men, has been well documented throughout our history. Are you going to call our greatest leaders liars, or deluded fools, because of a theory that can present no evidence whatsoever for its veracity? Everything that we see and know of our world at present indicates that it is a world controlled by forces beyond our comprehension, with phenomenon which cannot be explained by natural forces, but rather which must be supernatural in origin. And, logically, since they must be supernatural in origin, there must be supernatural beings causing those phenomenon.

PLATES -- Well, you see, actually, what we think of as solid ground is actually just a thin layer of rock that is actually floating on top of molten rock beneath the surface, and which slowly moves around the planet. There are a number of different, large plates moving about in this manner, and when they collide with each other, it can cause earthquakes, mountains, volcanoes, etc. Now, I recognize that this flies entirely in the face of everything we believe about the world, and all of our established theories; but its true nonetheless.

WINNER -- Gods. Their argument does, in fact, fit into and is predicted by their established theories. The Plate theory, on the other hand, requires discarding virtually all their beliefs about the nature of the world, without any evidence or experiments that can confirm such a belief.
5. If followed to it's logical end, X begins to conflict with many established theories or has illogical implications.
GODS -- My respected opponent is trying to convince you of a world devoid of supernatural forces; but lets consider the logical implications of this. It means that diseases must be natural, yet there is no observable natural cause of such things. Disease passes invisibly from one person to another, it appears full blown out of nothing. I also means that our forebears, our respected leaders, were either liars or deluded fools, when they told us of their experiences of the gods. It means that everything that our greatest scientists and philosophers have revealed to us about the nature of the world around us is, in fact, completely wrong.

PLATES -- I must admit, if followed to its logical conclusion, your beliefs do in fact coincide with established theories; and accepting my beliefs would require to you abandon all of that and accept an entirely new view of the world which seems to defy logic, and which flies in the face of established beliefs and theories.

WINNER -- Gods.
6. It's proponents cannot produce any consistent, logical and well-reasoned argument for X's existence.
GODS -- We can appeal not only to the authority of the generations of great scientists and philosophers who come before us, but also to logic. Every person here has witnessed events which are beyond human control, and which it is beyond the power of a mortal man to reproduce. Not just earthquakes, but disease, volcanoes, lightning, etc. Logically, there must be an originating force for such events; but nobody has ever been able to demonstrate or prove a natural force by which such events can be caused. Therefore, it is logical to assume that such events must be supernatural in origin, and that there are supernatural beings causing such events to occur.

PLATES -- Well, think about it. Take two large pieces of soft clay, and push them together. What happens? Where they meet, the clay will rise up, forming miniature mountains, just as we see in real life. If you push them in opposite lateral directions to each other, the place where they meet will suffer tears and rifts, exactly the same as we see in earthquakes. And if you put a fluid underneath them, then it will spurt up through the holes/fissures caused by this action, just as we see in volcanoes.

I therefore argue that, although I cannot prove my theory, it is a logically consistent and well-reasoned theory.

WINNER -- We'll call this one a toss-up. Plates has offered a logical argument, albeit one that he cannot prove or demonstrate; and it could even be argued to have a more solid logical foundation than the argument presented by Gods, who appeal more to authority and precedent. However, accepting this theory would also mean accepting that other events, such as disease and lightning, also are purely natural in origin, a conclusion which does not seem warranted by our own experience. There are no logical inconsistencies in Plates' theory if it is true, but there is no way of confirming it one way or the other.
7. The belief in X can be attributed to logical and well-grounded possibilities, such as it was beneficial to a previous society to encourage certain things or it provided a good explanation for something or something as simple as.
GODS -- I must admit, our theory certainly is based primarily on the beliefs of our ancestors, and provides a good explanation of the world around us. However, the Plates theory is based on nothing whatsoever -- no historical precedent, no quantifiable proof, nothing at all.

PLATES -- There is no real benefit to my belief...if you believe it, it won't enable to you prevent earthquakes, or mitigate their results.

WINNER -- We'll call it a toss-up again. Neither side has a particularly strong argument in this regard.

OVERALL WINNER -- GODS

I engaged in this rather tongue-in-cheek exercise to demonstrate that, even using all of the criteria you gave, any conclusions as to "truth" or "falseness" of claims is still entirely dependent on the technology and tools one has to examine the world around us. Given your entire set of requirements for evaluating the falseness of a claim, the people in my example would be 100% justified in rejecting the true theory as actually being false, with what you refer to as "a high degree of confidence".

Again, not arguing in favor of woos...just enjoy playing the devil's advocate. You asked if people saw anything missing, or had any problems...

...I see one thing missing, and one major problem. The fact that all such conclusions and arguments are entirely conditional upon having the means to measure/confirm/verify a particular theory. Lacking those means, an entirely untrue theory may prove to be more "true", according to your statements, than the actual reality.

[DRBUZZ0]

No. This is not about telling if a claim is valid or not. It could pass these and still be false.

It's more like "If all these criteria are met the claim is probably ********" "If they are all well met without any question it is most assuredly ********"

Basically it's something of logical justification for rejecting the paranormal and whatnot. If these are met it, then it would be, for all intents and purposes false.

I'm trying to address the "You can't reject the paranormal" argument with the "It's been so thouroughly looked into etc etc... it's entirely justified to do so".


I'm not trying to make a general purpose true-or-false thing. That'd prolly be impossible. More like the most course filter in a treatment system is designed to get most of the really big turds... getting the bacteria and stuff comes later, but first the major ******** should be screned out.

[Wolfman]

Oh, actually, I don't really disagree with you...I just enjoy taking arguments to extremes, to see how well they fare :)

[DRBUZZ0]

K.

[whiteyonthemoon]

Heliocentrism fit all of these criteria until the time of Galileo, and the only part he took care of was #6, and that was with a line of logic that turned out to be untrue(something regarding the source of the tides).
I'm also glad to see someone mentioned continental drift theory. Also general relativity didn't have much going for it at first, but people pursued it anyway.
It's hard to find a scientific revolution that doesn't fail many of your criteria.

[I less than three logic]

Heliocentrism fit all of these criteria until the time of Galileo, and the only part he took care of was #6, and that was with a line of logic that turned out to be untrue(something regarding the source of the tides).
I'm also glad to see someone mentioned continental drift theory. Also general relativity didn't have much going for it at first, but people pursued it anyway.
It's hard to find a scientific revolution that doesn't fail many of your criteria.
And yet, I'd say those that initially thought ideas like heliocentric models of the solar system, continental drift, and relativity were wrong were correct in doing so. The evidence just wasn't substantial enough at the time. We should assume these ideas that seem to contradict current knowledge are false until there is conclusive evidence otherwise, but that doesn't mean we should stop looking for that evidence.

Proving others wrong is a fundamental part of science. In fact, it is the very reason why science so reliable. We should always be looking for more evidence one way or the other even if we think the idea is wrong; even if we think it is right. There are scientists interested in relativity attempting to prove it wrong, even if only under very few circumstances. I think they should continue to do so, since we can only gain knowledge from their attempts. We'll either learn something new and interesting about the Universe or we'll learn that Einstein's theory is now slightly more reliable than we thought, still holding true under the circumstances tested.

I think the same holds true for things like psychic phenomena. They appear to contradict our current knowledge of how the Universe works and have very little, if any, supporting evidence. Thus, we are entirely correct in assuming the notion is false. Those that are interested in this topic should continue looking for the supporting evidence needed to prove this assumption wrong. However, for their attempts to be of any value they must adhere strictly to the scientific method. Then, just like with relativity above, we can only gain knowledge from the attempts. We'll either learn something new and exciting about the Universe, or we'll learn that our assumption that it is false is slightly more reliable, holding true in this circumstance tested. My main problem with this topic is that many of those looking for this evidence seem more concerned with convincing others it is true than in the accuracy of their evidence and the scientific method.

[John Hewitt]

When it's okay to consider something false.

Philosophers talk about "Theories of Truth", as for example in Kirkham's book of that name. I like to think there are three general types of such theories – correspondence, coherence and semantic theories.

A correspondence theory has it that a statement is true if it describes a corresponding fact that is, itself, indeed a fact. The problem then remains to demonstrate the fact so described. So far as science is concerned, it leads us into Popper and other ways (such as Pierce and pragmatic theories of truth) of converting observation into underlying true ideas, all of which can be and have been criticized.

The coherence theory of truth is the assertion that a truth claim may be tested by asking that it cohere with other, well established bodies of knowledge. I like to think of this as a sort of jigsaw theory of truth. A piece of a jigsaw puzzle may be deemed to be in the right place if its shape and the pattern on it cohere with those of neighbouring pieces. Many people would argue that this is the theory of truth that underlies the claims inherent in religious faith or political ideology. Be that as it may, it is certainly a criterion of truth that can fossilize bodies of knowledge and lead to claims of infallibility. It can also lead to situations like that described in the history of plate tectonics and the failure to recognize Weggener's work. Neither is this situation of merely historical scientific significance - modern scientific quality control is, for all practical purposes, an implementation of a coherence theory of truth. As such, it does invite future such episodes.

The semantic theory of truth is the assertion that a statement can be true if its truth is implied by the meaning of the words being used; the statement that "grass is green" is true but it is not a scientific theory because the words used have meanings that, to my mind at least, incorporate the truth of the claim. In other words, you may justifiably claim that a statement like "grass is purple" is untrue if the words used have their conventional meanings. This kind of theory is often ascribed to Tarski. Popper, at least, held that it justified the truth of the statements contained in of his own theory of scientific logic. He thus used Tarski's theory of truth as a foundation for his own theory of science.

[fls]

When is lack of evidence, evidence of lack?

I think that in addition to the nature of the evidence for a particular idea, that you should more thoroughly cover the completeness of the evidence against. You get at this a bit in number 5 - if existing theories that are complete or nearly complete exclude the possibility, the idea should be considered false until very strong evidence in support is provided. On the other hand, if existing theories are largely incomplete, then competing ideas can be weighed mostly on the relative merits of the evidence in support of each.

I think this would satisfy some of the criticisms. For example, our knowledge of the contents of the ocean is grossly incomplete, leaving plenty of space for extra-large creatures. So even the lack of substantiating evidence for giant squid would not have been sufficient to declare the possibility false.

On the other hand, our knowledge of the fundamental forces is exquisitely detailed, severely constraining the possibility of an undiscovered force (psi) whose actions are otherwise undetectable.

Linda

[DRBUZZ0]

I appreciate the responses and I will have to reconsider some things. I can see how this could be misleading.

My basic point is that a claim should either be verified by observations or at the very least have some logical theory behind it.

If galeleo had said the earth revolved around the sun because he liked that idea or it made him happy, that would be not worth considering. If he said (as he did) that it explained planetary motions, the change of seasons, was consistant with his observations of jupiter's moons, etc etc...

Then the theory, although not proven, is at least creditable.

But something which challenges the establishment without substantiative evidence and there isn't even a good logical argument why it would be so... that would be assumed to be made up.

It's a fine line, yes. But I'm shooting for figuring if something is just plain... unfounded.

[CapelDodger]

Like Wegener's continental drift theory. There were so many scientists who were not given tenure because they thought it deserving of consideration.

I think you'll find that the Wegener story has been severely over-blown. It wasn't heresy, it wasn't ridiculed, it did lack a mechanism. No-one was cast into outer darkness for considering it, or for coming up with a credible mechanism.

I only interject because the hyped Wegener story is used as evidence of scientific dogmatism by anti-scientists. It would be remiss of me to let it pass without comment.

Carry on.

So it goes.

Don't it just.

[CapelDodger]

It's a fine line, yes. But I'm shooting for figuring if something is just plain... unfounded.

I think too much attention is given to the precise position of the fine line and too little to the vast terrains that clearly lie to one side or the other. Some ideas are clearly false.

Example : the closest relative to the house-cat is the crocodile. (No, I didn't make that up, I heard from some young slapper at a party, in all seriousness. It's too do with their bendy spines or something :rolleyes: .) This is false. Baloney. Complete and utter bollocks.

There are matters that lie in the region of the line, and these are the interesting ones to those of a scientific bent. To Philosophers, of course, the line is wide enough to encompass everything that is or that can be postulated.

[DRBUZZ0]

I think too much attention is given to the precise position of the fine line and too little to the vast terrains that clearly lie to one side or the other. Some ideas are clearly false.



Exactly! Yes, the line's exact location is up for debate (to use this metaphore). Lets say the line is somewhere in the middle of the United Sates. Some things, in kansas or nebraska could go either way. Iowa seems like it's pretty much on the east side of the "line" but maybe you could make the case that it's possible... Ohio... that's really getting into the out-on-a-limb area.

But maine? No. No doubt about it. Not even worth considering.

It's not a black or white issue, but some things are such a very very dark shade of gray that you don't need to debate which side of the spectrum they are on.


Again this is aimed at paranormal and woo stuff that is just... trash.

[Solus]

You don't even need to go that far, the problem is getting people to use their minds and actually think. No doubt the audience you are trying to reach would not have the reading comprehension to even understand your post.

[CapelDodger]

You don't even need to go that far, the problem is getting people to use their minds and actually think. No doubt the audience you are trying to reach would not have the reading comprehension to even understand your post.

Tree pretty. Fire bad. Cookie?

[CapelDodger]

Philosophers talk ...

Don't they just. In fact, don't they only. Philosophy is an unfortunate side-effect of language, but there are positive effects that more than offset it. Whether they offset the negative effects of Rhetoric is more problematic. Rhetoric, unlike Philosophy, is talk with a practical purpose.