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Author Topic:   SCIENCE: -- "observational science" vs "historical science" vs ... science.
Percy
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Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 495 of 614 (736084)
09-01-2014 9:58 PM
Reply to: Message 494 by NoNukes
09-01-2014 9:36 PM


Re: Reply to "What I mean by the Unwitnessed Past"
I'm just trying to address the issues you raised as best I can. Sorry this isn't working out. Nothing I said was meant to be personal. The reference to your rejection of the possibility that statistics really were absent in the Crick/Watson work was only intended to highlight the similarity with Einstein's rejection of quantum phenomena like spooky action at a distance and such. It wasn't meant as a taunt. Forming opinions based upon our internal sense rather than on evidence is a human thing, not a stupid thing. I do it too. We all do.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 494 by NoNukes, posted 09-01-2014 9:36 PM NoNukes has replied

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 496 of 614 (736085)
09-01-2014 10:31 PM
Reply to: Message 485 by Percy
09-01-2014 7:32 AM


Re: Faith responds about "proof"
Faith has responded to my Message 485 at her That annoying complaint about the terms "prove" and "proof", so I'll reply here.
Faith writes:
UPDATE 9/1: Percy has "answered" this post, and of course NOT by doing what I requested at the end of it, that is, by providing the terminology to make the point I'm making. In other words, I have a point I'm making with perfectly reasonable ordinary usage of the word "prove," and if it can be made in more accurate terminology, fine. But helping me make my point is not on Percy's agenda, obscuring it is the agenda.
I'm sorry, Faith, but I was only trying to explain how you're using the word "prove" incorrectly. As I said, scientists use the word "prove" all the time, but they don't mean it in any mathematical sense. Nothing in science is ever proven in any mathematical sense. Science is tentative. When scientists use the word "prove" all they mean is that they can provide persuasive evidence.
You asked for help in expressing what you're trying to say, so let me try. Avoid the word "prove" altogether. I think it would work much better to say that interpretations of evidence are tentative, and that some interpretations are better supported by evidence than others.
--Percy

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 Message 485 by Percy, posted 09-01-2014 7:32 AM Percy has replied

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 499 of 614 (736103)
09-02-2014 2:22 PM
Reply to: Message 496 by Percy
09-01-2014 10:31 PM


Re: Faith responds about "proof"
Faith has now responded to my Message 496 at her That annoying complaint about the terms "prove" and "proof". Again, I'll reply here.
Faith writes:
Percy continues:
I'm sorry, Faith, but I was only trying to explain how you're using the word "prove" incorrectly.
You know what, Percy, I am not using it incorrectly. I'm using it the way it is used in ordinary English, and for conveying what I want to convey it is correct.
You say you're not using the word prove in any mathematical sense, but you're still using a definition that is tangled up with the concept of "truth" or "correctness". I think the definition of prove that you're using goes something along these lines: To establish the truth of, as by evidence or argument. Do I have that right? If so then you can't really use that definition with science, because science doesn't establish anything with finality. Science is tentative. Truth, once established, doesn't change, but scientific conclusions, once established, can change.
When scientists use the word prove they actually have in mind a meaning something more like this: to subject to a technical testing process. If you tell a scientist he can't prove something, then by the way scientists use the term you're saying that they can't subject something to a technical testing process. But everything can be subjected to a technical testing process, so it would make no sense to say that.
At one point you say about the term prove, "I am using it the way it is used in ordinary everyday English," but there is no single everyday English definition of prove. Pulling my good dictionary off the shelf I see that it lists 7 definitions.
Earlier you said this:
There is really no way to discuss the difference between the conclusions that are possible from testable science versus from science that studies the prehistoric past, without pointing out that you CAN prove testable hypotheses in a sense that is simply not possible in the other case.
Stating the case without the word prove, science can employ a technical testing process on anything in the natural world, including those parts of the natural world that happen to be very ancient.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 496 by Percy, posted 09-01-2014 10:31 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

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 Message 500 by Taq, posted 09-02-2014 9:44 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 502 of 614 (736111)
09-02-2014 11:06 PM
Reply to: Message 500 by Taq
09-02-2014 9:44 PM


Re: Faith responds about "proof"
Taq writes:
I would say that scientists use the word "prove" in much the same way that courtroom dramas do. They mean "proven beyond a reasonable doubt". As you say, they don't mean proven beyond any doubt.
Sure, I suppose a scientist's threshold for believing he'd proven something could be labeled "beyond a reasonable doubt". But finding that point doesn't seem easy. Earlier I was talking about how consensuses form, and I don't think it's possible to know when enough is enough in terms of evidence, argument and building a conceptual framework of understanding.
Stephen Jay Gould used this for his definition of fact:
"confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent."
I've never felt comfortable with this. When I'm only willing to give my "provisional assent" to something, I'm not going to call it a fact.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 500 by Taq, posted 09-02-2014 9:44 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 505 by Taq, posted 09-03-2014 11:59 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 507 of 614 (736126)
09-03-2014 1:02 PM
Reply to: Message 505 by Taq
09-03-2014 11:59 AM


Re: Faith responds about "proof"
Taq writes:
I find that interesting, given that your position departs from my own. In my experience, there are theories that undergird our collection of facts. A CCD camera that measures the luminosity of a type Ia supernova does so on the basis of many different theories, and your acceptance of the data is based on the provisional acceptance that the camera and methodology will accurately measure luminosity.
Assuming the camera is properly adjusted and calibrated, is in good working order, and is used properly, why would I only provisionally accept its measurements?
But I do get your point, concisely captured in the carpenter's dictum, "Measure twice, cut once." The definition of provisional you're working with is probably along the lines of accepted or adopted tentatively. I agree that ultimately even our facts are tentative, and I've argued as much on several occasions, but in that case we must allow that there exists a hierarchy of tentativity. Our facts are less tentative than our theories, so we can't indiscriminately refer to them both as tentative or provisional since they are not equally so.
So except in discussions where the distinction is important I consider facts our stakes in the ground and the theories we construct around these facts we gather as tentative.
--Percy

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Replies to this message:
 Message 508 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-03-2014 3:09 PM Percy has replied
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 510 of 614 (736132)
09-03-2014 3:31 PM
Reply to: Message 508 by Dr Adequate
09-03-2014 3:09 PM


Re: Faith responds about "proof"
Good points, though I do think I'll try to keep things more simple in the discussion with Faith where she's claiming we can't prove anything about the distant past. Hopefully she'll eventually come to understand that we're not trying to prove things about the ancient past, we're only trying to examine and analyze evidence from the ancient past to see what it can tell us. It turns out it can tell us quite a bit.
--Percy

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 513 of 614 (736137)
09-04-2014 8:16 AM
Reply to: Message 506 by herebedragons
09-03-2014 1:00 PM


Re: Reply to "What I mean by the Unwitnessed Past"
herebedragons writes:
The lack of statistics apparently was not a concern of the Noble committee.
Keep in mind that the structure that Watson and Crick proposed was hotly debated for about 25 years after their publication.
You must be thinking of something else, maybe something about Rosalind Franklin, because there was certainly never any controversy about the structure of DNA after the publication of the Crick/Watson paper, and that it was "hotly debated for about 25 years" is a complete fiction. The Nobel Prize isn't given for discoveries that are still being "hotly debated," and Crick, Watson and Wilkins received the Nobel Prize in 1962, only nine years after their discovery. By the time I took biology in 1966, the double helical structure of DNA was already in the textbook (BSCS series). When James Watson's book The Double Helix came out in 1968 there was no storm of controversy, and here's Watson's own account of how easy it is to recognize a helical structure:
James Watson in The Double Helix writes:
When I asked what the pattern was like, Maurice went into the adjacent room to pickup a print of the new form they called the "B" structure.
The instant I saw the picture my mouth fell open and my pulse began to race. The pattern was unbelievably simpler than those obtained previously ("A" form). Moreover, the black cross of reflections which denominated the picture could arise only from a helical structure.
As near as I can gather from a quick scan of my copy of The Double Helix, when he worked out the basics of the double helical structure Watson was working from his recollection of the print of the "B" form and a mimeograph of research results from Wilkins lab that I assume included measurements. Whether it also included statistical analyses Watson doesn't say.
It wasn't until data upon data was collected and observation after observation was made that critics were silenced.
Well, of course, this is the way science works, but what makes you think it took an incredible 25 years? Just based on my knowledge of the period, finding the structure of DNA was considered the Holy Grail of that field at the time. Everyone was racing to beat everyone else, including Linus Pauling. Crick and Watson's work was probably verified within weeks. In fact, I just found the passage in The Double Helix where Watson describes his communications with Pauling before the paper was even published in Nature. Pauling met with them in Cambridge on the eve of publication:
James Watson writes:
Though he [Pauling] still wanted to see the quantitative measurements of the King's lab, we supported our argument by showing him a copy of Rosy's original B photograph. All the right cards were in our hands and so, gracefully, he gave his opinion that we had the answer.
To the extent there was any controversy, it was over before the paper was even published, and it certainly didn't last any 25 years.
Statistics certainly came into play during that whole process.
I didn't say it didn't. I said there are no statistics in the Crick/Watson paper. The Double Helix also makes no mention of statistics. Watson says "measurements." The measurements were key because it told them how much space was available to fit the base pairs, and with that information they were able to deduce the base pair configuration within the helical backbone.
I only offered the example of the Crick/Watson paper as a counterexample to PaulK's statement that "any quantitative result...will involve statistics." I wasn't denigrating statistics or their importance to science. I *love* statistics. I was just objecting to an overly broad statement.
--Percy

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 517 of 614 (736206)
09-05-2014 7:58 AM


Faith responds about "proof"
Faith's latest blog post: Finishing up the "Proof" and Untestable Past discussion
Just thought I'd let people know, I haven't time to compose a reply right now.
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 518 by RAZD, posted 09-05-2014 8:18 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 519 by Percy, posted 09-08-2014 10:27 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 519 of 614 (736378)
09-08-2014 10:27 AM
Reply to: Message 517 by Percy
09-05-2014 7:58 AM


Re: Faith responds about "proof"
I have a few moments now, so I'll attempt to respond to Faith's blog post Finishing up the "Proof" and Untestable Past discussion.
Faith writes:
Percy writes:
I think the definition of prove that you're using goes something along these lines: To establish the truth of, as by evidence or argument. Do I have that right?
No, it's a lot simpler than that. All it really means to say you can't prove something is that you don't have the evidence you claim to have.
I think you must have meant to say something else, because this makes no sense. Of course we have the evidence we say we have, so I think you must have meant to say that the evidence we have doesn't lead to the conclusions we claim, especially since your subsequent discussion goes on as if you had said exactly that.
The contents of the rock strata are used as evidence for what past eras were like, what creatures lived then, what the climate was like, and so on, but the very idea that the contents of the strata define a time period is already an interpretation based on the theory that the strata represent time periods that succeed one another over hundreds of millions of years.
This is self-evidently false. Sedimentary layers will always contain evidence from where and when they formed. This is true of both flood geology and actual geology (e.g., a limestone layer could only have formed where and when there was calcium carbonate in the environment) and was established well before we knew how much time each layer actually represents.
But of course if all the strata represent is a layer of sediment filled with dead creatures deposited during the Flood event, all that is nothing but fairy tale.
The evidence doesn't support a single flood as responsible for all the sedimentary layers of the Earth for a number of reasons that you invariably ignore or dismiss, so I shan't waste my time listing them yet again, but will gladly do so upon any indication from you of a willingness to discuss them.
And again it seems important to point out that the very idea that a succession of slabs of rock could represent time periods on the planet is so absurd it takes a massive delusion to maintain the idea. Is time continuing to be represented by such layers?
You participated in an entire thread about this (Growing the Geologic Column) and cannot pretend to be unaware of all the evidence that sedimentary layers are accumulating today just like they did in the past.
Rationalization is always possible with the unwitnessed past where mere conjecture passes for fact. Which is of course what is meant by the untestability of the unwitnessed past,...
You have yet to offer any valid arguments for why prehistoric evidence is untestable. You continue on to repeat your argument that makes no sense:
I'll just note that Dr. A in Message 504 is repeating the typical notion that criminal forensics is the scientific method used with the ancient past, but as I've anaswered many times before, it's not the same thing because it deals entirely within the historical past, effectively the present, where there are many witnesses in the sense I've been using the term, such as access to all kinds of documented information from previous events in the historical past. Whereas in the ancient, prehistoric or unwitnessed past there is no such information forthcoming from those time periods. No witnesses from the prehistoric past, but witnesses galore -- in the sense I've been using the term, which is conveniently forgotten -- in the historic past, which is as good as the Present.
To make clear why this objection makes no sense just take the example of the Laetoli footprints. At a minimum they are evidence that something walked there in the distant past. You've never been able to explain how the absence of any human witnesses changes that.
And do note, please, that you continue to make assertions, recite the creeds of sciencedom as it were, rather than actually summoning any of the supposed evidence you claim is the important thing.
Even just a cursory glance at the Growing the Geologic Column, Continuation of Flood Discussion, and Why the Flood Never Happened threads makes clear that your claim of no evidence is false in the extreme.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 517 by Percy, posted 09-05-2014 7:58 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 520 by Percy, posted 09-10-2014 10:23 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 520 of 614 (736430)
09-10-2014 10:23 AM
Reply to: Message 519 by Percy
09-08-2014 10:27 AM


Re: Faith responds about "proof"
Faith has posted a response to my last post, so I'll reply to it here. Her response appears as an update at the bottom of her Finishing up the "Proof" and Untestable Past discussion blog post, but it's rather long. Search for "update 9/8".
Faith writes:
It isn't evidence if it doesn't lead to the conclusions you claim for it.
This makes no sense, so is this another one of those cases where we're supposed to understand what you really mean? You're saying that if evidence is misread by someone then it isn't really evidence. Say two people have two different interpretations of evidence, and that one of these people is right and the other is wrong. You're making the nonsensical claim that the evidence is actual evidence for the person who is right, but is not evidence for the person who is wrong. And if the person who is wrong should become convinced by the other's arguments and change his mind, then the evidence that wasn't really evidence for him is suddenly evidence.
You remind me of the Red Queen.
The rest of the update provokes equal befuddlement, I have no comment.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
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 Message 525 by PaulK, posted 09-10-2014 12:58 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 522 of 614 (736436)
09-10-2014 11:01 AM
Reply to: Message 521 by Dr Adequate
09-10-2014 10:41 AM


Re: Faith responds about "proof"
I guess I was thinking of the Red Queen inventing her own rules and offering illogical defenses of nonsense, but Humpty Dumpty creating his own word meanings is also apt.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 527 of 614 (736543)
09-11-2014 6:50 AM
Reply to: Message 525 by PaulK
09-10-2014 12:58 PM


Re: Faith responds about "proof"
PaulK writes:
In fairness I think that Faith is simply presenting her point very poorly. Facts are not evidence for a claim if they do not support that claim.
I don't think so. First she said, "All it really means to say you can't prove something is that you don't have the evidence you claim to have." When it was pointed out that she was wrong and that we do have the evidence we say we have, unable to concede error she instead compounded it by insisting, "It isn't evidence if it doesn't lead to the conclusions you claim for it." She believes we have no evidence for what we claim, but since we obviously do have evidence for what we claim (even if we're wrong) she makes up a definition of evidence where it refers only to that which supports a claim. This is a common fallback tactic for Faith, to play word games when the evidence isn't in her favor.
What is closest to what Faith said that happens to be true is that a claim can't be considered proven (successfully subjected to a technical testing process) until persuasive evidence has been gathered in its support. But Faith won't embrace a definition like this because it is just too obvious that science *has* gathered persuasive evidence in support of its claims, has, in effect, proven its claims.
Limestones do not normally build up as layers among layers, they had to have formed elsewhere and been transported and deposited as a layer. Water, of course, makes sedimentary layers; this is demonstrated in deltas and along the coastal margins.
Making up irrational excuses to cling to predetermined conclusions in the face of the evidence only shows that the evidence really does support a quite different conclusion.
I couldn't extract any single unambiguous meaning from that passage from Faith (nor from most of the rest of her update). Maybe it is an irrational excuse, but maybe it's just a further reflection of her inner confusion. Having no clear picture in her own mind of what she thinks happened that isn't starkly in violation of the known laws of the universe, and having only a tenuous understanding of those laws anyway, she's left to utter vague inanities.
When participating here Faith's posts follow an evolutionary pattern of gradual improvement over time as she weans out her weakest arguments, but all those lessons are forgotten when she returns to her blog.
--Percy

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 Message 525 by PaulK, posted 09-10-2014 12:58 PM PaulK has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 528 by edge, posted 09-11-2014 2:52 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 531 of 614 (736695)
09-12-2014 7:23 AM
Reply to: Message 528 by edge
09-11-2014 2:52 PM


Re: Faith responds about "proof"
edge writes:
I think that when Faith says that we have no evidence, she misspeaks. Facts are facts and they cannot be simply dismissed. I think what she means is that the interpretation of those facts is wrong.
I suggested that to Faith back in Message 519:
Percy in Message 519 writes:
...so I think you must have meant to say that the evidence we have doesn't lead to the conclusions we claim,...
In her answer in her update she reiterated her original statement:
Faith in her 9/8 Update writes:
But of course, have it your way if you must but you know what I mean. It isn't evidence if it doesn't lead to the conclusions you claim for it.
Having to defend offhand nonsensical things she's said actually works out well for Faith because it distracts time and attention away from the actual topic.
And the reason she keeps coming up with and then defending nonsensical statements is because she wants to present a line of reasoning that concludes we're wrong, but she can't do that with the normal definitions, so she keeps nudging word definitions around until she can. Of course by inventing her own definitions even those who might otherwise be on her side can't tell what she's saying.
--Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 528 by edge, posted 09-11-2014 2:52 PM edge has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 532 of 614 (736696)
09-12-2014 7:51 AM


Faith Posts a 9/11 Update
Faith has posted another update at her blog, see Finishing up the "Proof" and Untestable Past discussion, then search for "9/11 Update".
Proof was the original topic of Faith's blog post, but in her updates she's been gradually drifting away from that topic and more into geology. In this latest update she's completely abandoned the proof topic, repeating a few of her wackier geological claims as if they hadn't already been rebutted many times. The rebuttals can all be found in the Growing the Geologic Column, Continuation of Flood Discussion, and Why the Flood Never Happened threads.
Concerning the topic of proof, I hope that at some point Faith will begin embracing normal word definitions and agree that evidence is evidence independent of whether anyone has drawn the right conclusions from it. It makes no sense to say, "Your evidence doesn't support your claims, therefore you have no evidence." This shouldn't even have to be explained. It's simple English.
When scientists say they have proven something, all they mean is that they have supported their claims with evidence sufficiently persuasive to form a consensus.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

Replies to this message:
 Message 533 by Taq, posted 09-12-2014 1:36 PM Percy has replied
 Message 535 by NoNukes, posted 09-12-2014 3:34 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 534 of 614 (736732)
09-12-2014 2:35 PM
Reply to: Message 533 by Taq
09-12-2014 1:36 PM


Re: Faith Posts a 9/11 Update
Taq writes:
Evidence is a set of observations that satisfies the hypothesis and disproves the null hypothesis.
Expressed this way, it's consistent with what Faith is saying. Putting it in your terms, she's saying that evidence that does not satisfy the hypothesis and does not disprove the null hypothesis is not evidence.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 533 by Taq, posted 09-12-2014 1:36 PM Taq has not replied

  
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