Falsifiable Predictability

[themyst]

I am having a discussion with a friend on my blog and I used the term "Falsifiable Predictability" and she said she has never heard that term before and for the life of me I can't get google to give me a direct link to that exact term.

Does anyone know who first may have used that exact term?

[Hellbound]

I've never heard it, either. It makes sense, though; in the sense that a hypothesis that leads to a falsifiable prediction would have falsifiable predictability. Never heard it phrased that way, though.

Sorry this post wasn't more helpful

[sphenisc]

Originally Posted by Hellbound

I've never heard it, either. It makes sense, though; in the sense that a hypothesis that leads to a falsifiable prediction would have falsifiable predictability. Never heard it phrased that way, though.

Sorry this post wasn't more helpful

That sounds tautological. If I predict a then obviously ~a would falsify it. If I predict a or ~a then I'm not sure I've really made a prediction?

I think the concept you describe is equivalent to falsifiability.

[Hellbound]

Originally Posted by sphenisc

That sounds tautological. If I predict a then obviously ~a would falsify it. If I predict a or ~a then I'm not sure I've really made a prediction?

I think the concept you describe is equivalent to falsifiability.

Well, yeah. I've just never heard the term here before, so I'm guessing on it's meaning.

[themyst]

I was using the term in trying to explain skeptism/science to my friend. I was saying how science makes claims (predictions) and then tries to Falsify (via peer review) them.

I have always used the term Falsifiable Predictability when explaining why I trust science over belief.

[blutoski]

Originally Posted by themyst

I was using the term in trying to explain skeptism/science to my friend. I was saying how science makes claims (predictions) and then tries to Falsify (via peer review) them.

I have always used the term Falsifiable Predictability when explaining why I trust science over belief.

It looks like what you mean is what's widely known as [falsifiability]. It's related to the [Popperian] view of what is a fact of natural science (the [demarkation problem]).

It's tough, because falsifiability isn't enough. eg: mediums may be employed to detect ghosts - they could in principle not find a ghost, which makes the test falsifiable. Yet, this is not skeptical.

Skepticism is more the worldview composed of what you have already accepted in your underlying assumptions, and the findings derived from these assumptions. I think what you'll find is that if you peel back layers, you and your friend have disagreements about untestable things, and all disagreements about facts derive from these different views.

[jasonpatterson]

Originally Posted by blutoski

It's tough, because falsifiability isn't enough. eg: mediums may be employed to detect ghosts - they could in principle not find a ghost, which makes the test falsifiable. Yet, this is not skeptical.

I don't think that simply being able to have a negative result qualifies a hypothesis as being falsifiable. The test that is demonstrating the negative result has to be valid as well, which is probably not the case in the example you give. I could say that a test of evolution is whether it appeared in the bible or not, and when I don't find evidence of evolution in the bible, it is falsified, but that's not what Popper was talking about. (Not the best example, perhaps, but it was all I could think of on short notice. )

[Hellbound]

Originally Posted by jasonpatterson

I don't think that simply being able to have a negative result qualifies a hypothesis as being falsifiable. The test that is demonstrating the negative result has to be valid as well, which is probably not the case in the example you give. I could say that a test of evolution is whether it appeared in the bible or not, and when I don't find evidence of evolution in the bible, it is falsified, but that's not what Popper was talking about. (Not the best example, perhaps, but it was all I could think of on short notice. )

The birds example is oft quoted. For example, if there's a species of white bird, I might hyptohesize that "at least one of the whitebirds is black." However, without finding and identifying all possible whitebirds in all possible locations, I can't falisy the hypothesis. Additionally, even if this is accomplished, there's still the possibility of future or past whitebirds, one of which might have been (or be) black.

Same with ghosts; you can't disprove ghosts, just a specific ghost, which means there's no falsification to a generalized "ghosts exist" statement.

But yeah, it seems that the term means falsibiability to me, too, but perhaps I'm nto understanding it correctly.

[blutoski]

Originally Posted by jasonpatterson

I don't think that simply being able to have a negative result qualifies a hypothesis as being falsifiable. The test that is demonstrating the negative result has to be valid as well, which is probably not the case in the example you give. I could say that a test of evolution is whether it appeared in the bible or not, and when I don't find evidence of evolution in the bible, it is falsified, but that's not what Popper was talking about. (Not the best example, perhaps, but it was all I could think of on short notice. )

That's what I meant with the last paragraph in my post: the debate isn't just about falsifiability, but the underlying merit of the test, which can depend on things that are not themselves testable, or differences in reasoning.

Popper was saying that falsifiability is a property of scientific investigation, but not that falsifiability made an hypothesis true. That requires going through the scientific method.

Skeptical thinking is close to scientific thinking, which is a worldview that (I'm simplifying) holds some unproven assumptions to be true, then, extends hypotheses that can be falsifiabily tested, preferably by independent investigators. Over time, these tests accumulate to credible models.

So, disagreements with paranormalists often boil down to disagreements about those unprovable assumptions. That's one reason they're using testing methods we think are useless. (the other being shocking ignorance)

[blutoski]

Originally Posted by Hellbound

Same with ghosts; you can't disprove ghosts, just a specific ghost, which means there's no falsification to a generalized "ghosts exist" statement.

Yes, this is what I call the good news / bad news about paranormal investigation. In many cases, the hypotheses are not falsifiable, and the 'experiment' is really an exercise in confirmation-seeking.

I've been repetitive on this before, so I apologize, but the key problem with paranormal investigation is that it's closer to social sciences than natural sciences, because the subject of investigation is assumed to have some sort of agency.

This complicates falsifiability in that there is an enormous inventory of back-pocket excuses for negative results. eg: what does 'failure to find ghost' mean?

Suggested explanations:

• ghost has changed properties - no longer detectable by original method (sight, sound, smell, hearing, emf, evp, temperature, &c)
• ghost has changed habits - no longer breaking dishes, leaving footprints,
• ghost does not like this particular team / member of team
• ghost does not like being tested at all, and is now hiding, departed

Also: what does 'no ghost' look like? eg: what's the baseline for comparision (a known-unhaunted location).

[rjh01]

Just done a search on google. The only place I found it was one thread on this forum.

[Klimax]

It can be argued that it is more precise.

There are after all various predictions,which cannot be falsified... (not all,but those are rarer)
Like various card reading,astrology and psychics...

[Typicallucas]

I concur with many of the other posters in this thread.

Falsifiability is an important part of science. It means that a hypothesis can be tested and potentially proved wrong. A hypothesis that is immune from being proven wrong under any circumstances is not something you can devise scientific tests for.

Using scientific theories to make a prediction about the future is one way to devise a test. You wait until the prescribed time comes, make observations, and see if the prediction came true. If it didn't, the theory may have failed the test.

Falsifiability and predictions don't always go together though, there ways to test theories that don't include making predictions and waiting for them to come true. If you are a scientist in the past and you are studying phase changes of gasses and liquids you may hypothesize that there is a correlation between the pressure of a substance and it's freezing temperature.

You wouldn't have to make predictions, you could go straight into the lab and run hundreds of tests with different liquids at different pressures and recording at what temperature they freeze and arrange your data in graphs showing a clear correlation. You would submit your findings in peer reviewed journals who would closely inspect your protocol, testing, assumptions, data, and decide if your work if fit for publishing. When your paper is published scientists all over the world see this fascinating connection between phase states and pressure and teams of scientists from several counties reproduce your experiments and publish their findings in peer reviewed journals showing that they got the same results you did... now everyone goes to work to learn even more about phase states.

You just did science and nobody had to predict anything yet.

I suppose if you call a hypothesis a prediction you might be able to make a semantic argument that Falsifiable Predictability is correct... but I suggest let's be precise with our language and leave the definition of prediction alone.

In summary: The term Falsifiable Predictability isn't useful when explaining scientific method.