[jonathanjong]

Huh. I'm not convinced that the Universe would have to be eternal for life to have evolved all by itself, but no matter. I'm not interested in attempts to falsify evolution or Creationism or Intelligent Design, anyhow. Indeed, I don't think falsfication is logically possible. Qua science, though, evolutionary theory makes for more fecund and therefore better science. True or not, I can't work with Creationism and Intelligent Design. So, as a scientist – not convinced that evolutionary theory has been falsified – I prefer it over its rivals because it's more fruitful. Yes, it's a pragmatic consideration. Ask me about truth when I have my philosopher's hat on. More importantly, I think, as a religious believer, I can't deal with the deity implied by Creationism and Intelligent Design. But that's all we're allowed to say on the matter here.

 

[Lazarus Short]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonathanjong /img/forum/go_quote.gif Indeed, I don't think falsfication is logically possible.

I believe that one of the qualities of a theory which makes it science is the very quality of falsifiability. Is that not so? How does science progress if inferior theories can not be proved false, and so, discarded??

It is always interesting seeing this process - years ago, the evolutionists attacked creationism with vigor. Now, creationists are fighting back, and scoring points. Both sides are doing good science, at least at some level. In like manner, the Electric Model (see thunderbolts.com) is zapping the Gravitic Model, and scoring points. Seeing this shift occur can be a thing of beauty...

 

[jonathanjong]

Oh, not at all. Even Karl Popper, hailed the father of falsificationism knew this. Theorists can always blame a potential falsification event on an auxiliary hypothesis, not integral to the theory. It's called the Duhem-Quine thesis. I believe there's a wikipedia article on this.

I'm not sure Creationists are scoring points, actually. At least not among scientists. But I'd like to see scientists take creationism and ID theory more seriously; at least engage in conversation. Let's not rehash the old "Oh it ain't science cos it ain't falsifiable" rhetoric, because it ain't true. And Michael Ruse knows it.

 

[12Bass]

Where are the predictions and test results for this alternative theory? Proponents almost invariably fail to offer anything. If there's a scientific alternative which suggests a genuine research program, I've yet to see it.

Another point is that the TOE is grand theory, a work in progress, containing a massive number of hypotheses. Thus it does not seem reasonable to suggest that the falsification of one of the sub-hypotheses represents the failure of the theory as a whole. Biology is a lot more difficult to pin down than physics.

 

[12Bass]

As I understand it, evolutionary theory is a biological theory which is limited in scope to explaining how life adapted and changed over time. Other areas like cosmology and abiogenesis attempt to answer questions regarding the origin of the universe, and life itself, respectively. The latter areas of science are more in the realm of physics and organic chemistry.

Another related point I've been meaning to touch on is regarding scientific reductionism. Reducing complex systems to simpler component parts is a heuristic which makes scientific research less intractable. However, I'm not sure that it is reasonable to suggest that reductionism has the myopic connotations that some here have earlier suggested. It's not as if a physicist thinks that the world is nothing but the entities in quantum physics. Rather, it make more sense, IMO, to adopt a holistic overall perspective, while recognizing that reduction is pragmatic necessity to facilitate understanding of pieces of the whole. Imagine trying to explain the whole Universe at once!

 

[Lazarus Short]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonathanjong /img/forum/go_quote.gif Oh, not at all. Even Karl Popper, hailed the father of falsificationism knew this. Theorists can always blame a potential falsification event on an auxiliary hypothesis, not integral to the theory. It's called the Duhem-Quine thesis. I believe there's a wikipedia article on this. I'm not sure Creationists are scoring points, actually. At least not among scientists. But I'd like to see scientists take creationism and ID theory more seriously; at least engage in conversation. Let's not rehash the old "Oh it ain't science cos it ain't falsifiable" rhetoric, because it ain't true. And Michael Ruse knows it.

I think I understand - a theory gets entrenched, moves the goal posts, claims the rules/methods that could prove it false no longer apply, and establishes an orthodoxy. Real clever.

 

[Fido2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonathanjong /img/forum/go_quote.gif Huh. I'm not convinced...

THIS sums up quite nicely the entire discussion in this thread...LOL

One can be shown cargo-tanker shiploads of "evidence"(empirical or philosophical) and still all one has to say is "Huh. I'm not convinced." I'm sorry this is just funny to me. Please forgive.

You guys call me when the new multi-billion dollar collidor finds the Higgs-Boson God particle...I'm holding my breath.

 

[wink]

Lazarus Short said:-
I think I understand - a theory gets entrenched, moves the goal posts, claims the rules/methods that could prove it false no longer apply, and establishes an orthodoxy. Real clever..

You got it Laz.............

Along with "gimme an alternative, or I wont accept your disproof of my theory" you have a lot of today's science so called in a nutshell.

 

[12Bass]

It is interesting seeing those with dogmatic views making arguments against dogmatism. Isn't that line of reasoning self-negating?

Science, like any human endeavor, is imperfect. However, through peer review and other means, science corrects itself over time. This is perhaps its greatest strength. Further, if one expects "absolute truth" from science, one has set their standards far too high. Scientific truths are better seen as the best we know at the moment.

 

[Lazarus Short]

Oh goodness! Did I say I was dogmatic? Or are we all having a pot-to-kettle conversation??

Now if science corrects itself over time thru means such as peer review and other unstated mechanisms, we need to remember that these corrective mechanisms are themselves imperfect. Peer review, to take an example, can not be expected to do much more than pass along more of what the "peers" were taught in school. It is self-reinforcing, self-replicating. Nevertheless there is hope, and I have seen it myself in my lifetime, as the catastrophist viewpoint has grudgingly been made room for in a uniformitarian world. More such change is coming.

 

[12Bass]

Huh? Perhaps I'm mistaken. However, those who give harsh criticisms with the intent to undermine the value of science as a whole often have their own strongly dogmatic unscientific commitments. Unfortunately, this is not the forum for that discussion....

I don't think science is even close to perfect. One way to view it is as a methodological tool we humans use for empirical knowledge gathering. These days, corporate, military, and other vested interests are using this tool for their own purposes, which gives reason for skepticism about the objectivity of certain research. Pure science, just for the sake of discovery, seems to be moving aside for profit-driven applied research. Troubling, yes, but not enough to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[Lazarus Short]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 12Bass /img/forum/go_quote.gif Huh? Perhaps I'm mistaken. However, those who give harsh criticisms with the intent to undermine the value of science as a whole often have their own strongly dogmatic unscientific commitments. Unfortunately, this is not the forum for that discussion.... I don't think science is even close to perfect. One way to view it is as a methodological tool we humans use for empirical knowledge gathering. These days, corporate, military, and other vested interests are using this tool for their own purposes, which gives reason for skepticism about the objectivity of certain research. Pure science, just for the sake of discovery, seems to be moving aside for profit-driven applied research. Troubling, yes, but not enough to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I'm glad to see that you are aware of that. I have been insisting for years that real science is a bad mix with money, profits, politics, and perhaps even ideology.

 

[jelt2359]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wink /img/forum/go_quote.gif Lazarus Short said:- I think I understand - a theory gets entrenched, moves the goal posts, claims the rules/methods that could prove it false no longer apply, and establishes an orthodoxy. Real clever.. You got it Laz............. Along with "gimme an alternative, or I wont accept your disproof of my theory" you have a lot of today's science so called in a nutshell.

This is human nature. Doesn't make it wrong, since it sometimes serves us well to be skeptical. Doesn't make it right either, since sometimes it leads us to be obnoxiously stubborn.

 

[melomaniac]

We thus leave behind the assemblages to enter the age of the Machine, the immense mechanosphere, the plane of cosmicization of forces to be harnessed. Varese's procedure, at the dawn of this age, is exemplary: a musical machine of consistency, a sound machine (not a machine for reproducing sounds), which molecularizes and atomizes, ionizes sound matter, and harnesses a cosmic energy. If this machine must have an assemblage, it is the synthesizer. By assembling modules, source elements, and elements for treating sound (oscillators, generators, and transformers), by arranging microintervals, the synthesizer makes audible the sound process itself, the production of that process, and puts us in contact with still other elements beyond sound matter. It unites disparate elements in the material, and transposes the parameters from one formula to another. The synthesizer, with its operation of consistency, has taken the place of the ground in a priori synthetic judgment: its synthesis is of the molecular and the cosmic, material and force, not form and matter, Grund and territory. Philosophy is no longer synthetic judgment; it is like a thought synthesizer functioning to make thought travel, make it mobile, make it a force of the Cosmos (in the same way as one makes sound travel).
This synthesis of disparate elements is not without ambiguity. It has the same ambiguity, perhaps, as the modern valorization of children's drawings, texts by the mad, and concerts of noise. Sometimes one overdoes it, puts too much in, works with a jumble of lines and sounds; then instead of producing a cosmic machine capable of "rendering sonorous," one lapses back to a machine of reproduction that ends up reproducing nothing but a scribble effacing all lines, a scramble effacing all sounds. The claim is that one is opening music to all events, all irruptions, but one ends up reproducing a scrambling that prevents any event from happening. All one has left is a resonance chamber well on the way to forming a black hole. A material that is too rich remains too "territorialized": on noise sources, on the nature of the objects ... (this even applies to Cage's prepared piano). One makes an aggregate fuzzy, instead of defining the fuzzy aggregate by the operations of consistency or consolidation pertaining to it.

(Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus)

 

[Fido2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 12Bass /img/forum/go_quote.gif As I understand it, evolutionary theory is a biological theory which is limited in scope to explaining how life adapted and changed over time. Other areas like cosmology and abiogenesis attempt to answer questions regarding the origin of the universe, and life itself, respectively. The latter areas of science are more in the realm of physics and organic chemistry.

This is fine with me if one understands the "truth" that evolution only occurs in a very limited fashion within a species. To state the obvious, a duck could never evolve into a dog etc etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 12Bass /img/forum/go_quote.gif Another related point I've been meaning to touch on is regarding scientific reductionism. Reducing complex systems to simpler component parts is a heuristic which makes scientific research less intractable. However, I'm not sure that it is reasonable to suggest that reductionism has the myopic connotations that some here have earlier suggested. It's not as if a physicist thinks that the world is nothing but the entities in quantum physics. Rather, it make more sense, IMO, to adopt a holistic overall perspective, while recognizing that reduction is pragmatic necessity to facilitate understanding of pieces of the whole. Imagine trying to explain the whole Universe at once!

I don't think it's possible to explain the whole universe in depth anyway. Hawkings "theory of everything" is never going to materialize.
I still fail to understand the DOGMATIC tendancy of materialists to reject the creation of our universe and all that's in it to a divine being that exists outside our realm of total comprehension. If what I just stated is true it stands to reason that this being would be beyond our abilities to scientifically completely discover, explain and categorize and thus "prove". So in this instance we have a situation that cannot be falsified but is yet the best explanation to our existence.
It seems to me that science and all it's discoveries and ramifications that affect all areas of our lives would serve us better if we approached these discoveries from this angle knowing that we are discovering amazing things in an amazing universe created by an amazing divine being...
The opposite, materialistic view is a cold, sterile, empty, meaningless way to go about things...ultimately..IMO...lol

On a different note man my AH-D7000's sound great right now...hee