What is good science?

Hi Ben,I, too, wondered if Chris was simply applying an odd definition of evidence. If he has a different definition of evidence that he could clearly articulate then I might find I could work with it, or at least argue against it, but I don't know what Chris's definition of evidence is. If you know what "The evidence of a hypothesis is seen in its consequence" means that would be helpful. By simply repeating this multiple times and never explaining it Chris gave the impression of trying to pass off nonsense through bluster.Like PaulK, I don't agree with your definition of evidence. Yes, of course science begins with observations. And you write those observations in your notebook or your sensors record the data in your computer's memory. This data is evidence. Data doesn't suddenly become evidence only when attached to theory. The data that accumulates before the formulation of theory is still evidence. Evidence can even contradict theory and stand well outside accepted ideas - more on that when I respond to Cavediver.While observations, data and evidence are not precise synonyms, much of the time they are used synonymously. Regardless, it is not necessary to draw fine distinctions between them to make the point that Chris has no data supporting or consistent with his hypothesis. In other words, he has no evidence.Chris still has full privileges in all the non-science forums, and he can return to this thread at any time and begin making points that make sense to those that understand how scientific inquiry works and indicate that he can contribute productively in the science threads. After all, Chris received the restrictions because his contributions in the CPT thread were becoming more and more evasive and nonsensical and inconsistent and unscientific, and once he shows a willingness to cease contributing in this way his privileges will be restored.This message has been edited by Admin, 07-25-2005 08:09 AM

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I never commented on this because I saw no major problems with it. Eliminate the reference to "auxiliary hypotheses" and the needless phrase "epistemic reason" and it looks like a fine basic statement of the scientific method.As PaulK commented just above, though, Chris's true problem is that he goes on to make indecipherable statements concerning evidence in support of his belief that CPT satisfies scientific requirements. In other words, Chris knows that CPT hasn't followed the scientific method you quoted him describing, so he finds other means to justify it as scientific. No one agrees that he's taking a scientific approach to CPT. How about the anomolies in the orbit of Mercury? The deviations of the orbit of Mercury from the predictions of Newtonian physics were well known before Einstein developed General Relativity.Another example is black body radiation. The observational evidence showed that the spectrum of radiation from black bodies did not fit that predicted by classical theory. This evidence led to the development of quantum theory. We haven't been ignoring the distinction between the absence of evidence of a phenomenon versus the possibility of a phenomenon. It was pointed out in the CPT thread that Baumgardner plugged unrealistic values into his model.To all: I'm sensing that at least a couple people see some sense in Chris's nonsense. For those who think that's the case, please help Chris make clear what he's trying to say so he can return to full participation.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Since Chris ignored this point here's a quote from Wikipedia: [emphasis mine]CPT is clearly a degenerative research program.

I disagree that Chris's comments were indecipherable. They were evasive and obfuscatory, but it is possible to see through them.For instance Chris argues:1) CPT has common elements with mainstream plate tectonics
2) There is evidence for these common elements
3) Therefore it is misleading to say that there is no evidence for CPT.Of course as I pointed out, without evidence for the distinctive features of CPT it is quite reasonable to say that there is no evidence for CPT - and it would be more misleading to argue as Chris has done.

Agree 100%... especially about eliminating those terms. Absolutely, but I would describe Mercury as the "observation" that something wasn't quite right. And of course GR in 1915 did not say ANYTHING about this anomaly. It wasn't until Schwarzchild produced his spherically symmetric solution to GR, and a post_newtonian approximation was developed that suggested what the difference should be. This was well over a decade after the instigation of Einstein's search for GR... which was not inspired by mercury but the ideas of covariance leading from Special Relativity. Black body radiation is certainly evidence for quantum theory, but "This evidence led to the development of quantum theory" sounds backwards unless by "This evidence" you refer to the evidence that classical theory was wrong. This is only really semantics... If that is the case, then I'm fine. But the emphasis seems to have been on discrediting the historical fact of CPT 4500 years ago (via accelerated decay, heating, etc) rather than on the pure geophysics of the CPT mechanism, which I think is what Chris has been pushing. It would be nice to see a discussion of the pure geophysics and the modelling without any YEC interference/inference from either side. Not in my case. In my mind Chris is trusting a dodgy model. But the model is not validated/invalidated by any YEC/anti-YEC argument.

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If that is the case, then I'm fine. But the emphasis seems to have been on discrediting the historical fact of CPT 4500 years ago (via accelerated decay, heating, etc) rather than on the pure geophysics of the CPT mechanism, which I think is what Chris has been pushing.

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No, CPT *is* the idea that there was very rapid movement of the plates circa 4500 years ago. That is why CPT requires accelerated radioactive decay - which is not part of Baumgardner's geophysical model.

Yes, I guess I agree with this characterization, but as I told Chris, I couldn't continue investing the necessary time wading through the evasion and obfuscation. I did in the beginning, but as time went by and it didn't diminish I just had to give it up, and I told him so. If he were merely communicating as best he could it wouldn't be so bad, but he employs it as a means to avoid giving straight answers and to hide the lack of science in his ideas. His less-than-forthright approach to supporting his ideas would not be even remotely acceptable in any scientific journal, and they're not acceptable here. When we say there's no evidence for CPT it's just shorthand for saying there's no evidence for CPT that distinguishes it from PT. It shouldn't be necessary to remake the entire point from scratch every time it is raised.As Chris's recent exchange with Jar makes clear, he will not straightforwardly address requests for the evidence that points to rapid motion. He instead argues that CPT hasn't been falsified and so is valid theory, once more skipping past its lack of positive evidence and ignoring the many falsifications. He also argues that actions occurring 500 million times more rapidly than normal would leave precisely the same evidence behind as normally paced actions.Once Chris shows he can ground his arguments in reality instead of contributing pages of speculation supported primarily with evasion and obfuscation, then he can return to full privileges. If I can reword my earlier request slightly, if Chris could just complete the sentence, "The significant observational data supporting CPT over PT is...", it would go a long way toward aiding his cause. I'd say it is this, his inability or unwillingness to answer this question, that more than any other single issue is making his continued promotion of CPT appear as disingenuous dissembling.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Ahhh, are you distinguishing CPT from "Baumgardner's geophysical model"? Sorry, I thought they were one and the same, and CPT was being applied to the YEC problem of continental drift as a "solution".How refuted is "Baumgardner's geophysical model"? As you know, I'm not a geologist. However, I did see mention of a 2d version of the model... the idea of looking for critical phenomena within a reduced dimensionality model is asking for trouble...

I really don't know how bad the assumptions required to get CPT are. Chris has disagreed with what I had read earlier and I'm not in a position to evaluate the issue.

This is beside the point, but are you sure about Schwarzschild? I've read several Einstein biographies, and they all have Einstein applying his theory to the problem of Mercury's orbit before making his theory of General Relativity fully public. I'm at work and so I don't have access to the Einstein biographies, but several sites on the web seem to agree with my recollection. For example, this is from Article on General Relativity from the Mathematical Physics Index: I can't find anything on the web about Schwarzschild (note your misspelling) being involved with calculations on Mercury's orbit. Doesn't mean it didn't happen, but what I've read and the evidence I can get to right now on the web indicates that Einstein had already verified that his theory of General Relativity yielded the correct orbit for Mercury before making his theory public. I don't follow why you would think anything is backwards, so let me state this a slightly different way so I can ask questions that might get to the core of the issue.The observational data of black body radiation did not agree with classical theory. This data motivated the search for a new theory that correctly predicted the energy spectrum. The gathering of the data preceded any formulations of hypotheses along the lines of quantum theory, consistent with the expectation that data precedes theory.Now, I expect that you have no problem with that, and if that's the case then I assume that if you replace the word "data" with "evidence" that you *would* have a problem with it. What is the distinction between evidence and data for you? At what point during the steps of the scientific method did data become evidence?My own view is that you and Ben and TC are applying far too strict a definition of evidence. Even a large dictionary is only a partial guide to the meaning of words, whose true meaning is governed by the context in which they're used. If there's some formal scientific definition of evidence that I'm unaware of then someone please share it with me, but otherwise I'll use words like observations, data, information and evidence pretty much interchangably. I'll make any necessary fine distinctions in meaning clear from the context. The CPT thread (Catastrophic Plate Tectonics - Fact or Fiction?) is far broader than just Baumgardner's model. If you'd like to explore just the model then propose a new thread.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hopefully, we take an educated guess.Just because you see a beautiful sandstone layer between two volcanic layers doesn't mean it's okay to say, "that sandstone was volcanically deposited."This message has been edited by roxrkool, 07-25-2005 10:54 AM

Would an obsevation that does not fit a theory, in fact might falsify the theory, be evidence?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Perhaps I worded my statement poorly.Science begins with observations, and creates a hypothesis to explain those observations. Evidence is then gathered through experimentation and further observation to attempt to prove the hypothesis wrong.However, to say that science "starts" with it's conclusion is also wrong. By that logic, scientists make up hypotheses for no reason whatsoever. A hypothesis is an EDUCATED guess, not just a random thought. This means that hte hypothesis is created to describe some event or property. Creationists (as an example of bad science) begin by reading in a book. This book tells them that certain events happened (ie, the Flood, six-day Creation, etc.) Creationists then attempt to create a scenario that conforms with physical observations as much as possible that also describes the events described in their book.Assuming the events in the bible were true, scientists would make certain observations (radiological age of the Earth, geologic and fossil records, etc), and create a hypothesis to explain them. If the Earth dated to only 6000 years, and there was overwhelming evidence of a massive flood (a large sedimentary layer spanning the entire world at the exact same geological period containing a hugely unusual number of fossils caused by nearly every living thing on the Earth dying in a period of, if I remember correctly, just over a year), the scientists would hypothesize that the world is 6000 years old, and that several thousand years ago a massive global flood caused the virtual extinction of nearly every species on the planet, but somehow everything survived in the end.Do you not see the difference? "Defending the hypothesis" is a violation of logic because it alters the evidence, moves the goalposts, to defend the hypothesis that has already been defined.Lets use a different example. Scientitst observe various supernovas. They hypothesize that, by examining certain aspects of these supernovas, they can determine the approximate distance from Earth. Upon testing this hypothesis, they produce reproducibly accurate results that fit with all of the observed evidence. When new observational techniques and better measurement devices, the hypothsis is modified to fit the new evidence, resulting in a gradually more accurate and true description of reality. Consistantly, the results show that the universe is billions of years old.A Creationist observes the same initial data in the supernovas, but alread believes that the universe is only 6000 years old (remember, he read it in his book, so it must be true!). The creationist follows the scientists' testing of their hypothesis. When he sees that the results show that the universe is billions of years old, rather than thousands, the creationist determines that God must have created the light from these supernovas already en-route to Earth, giving the appearance of age. He doesn't change his hypothesis to suit the evidence (he is still quite certain that the universe is only 6000 years old). Instead, he alters, spins, or outright ignores the evidence and continues to support his original hypothesis.Do you see the logical fallacy? If a=b, and b=c, then we can hypothesize that a=c. If a is shown later to not, in fact, be the same as b, or if a consequence of a being equal to c is shown not to be valid, then a can also no longer be assumed to be the same as c. A person committing this fallacy would continue to insist that a=c, even though direct evidence has shown it to be false.

Since there's some disagreement about the definition of the word "evidence", I thought I'd look it up. I found some pretty poor definitions ("something that furnishes proof" from Merriam Webster), but some were okay: Do people agree with these definitions? Does anyone see in these definitions any implication that observational data gathered prior to building a hypothesis isn't evidence? Are some thinking of evidence as data that has been placed in an interpretive context, and that therefore raw data is not evidence until it has been analyzed? Or, as I asked earlier, is there some formal scientific definition of evidence of which I'm unaware that defines it as referring only to data which has been found to positively confirm theory?

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

All that you say is true but some of TC's posts were, I think, hinting at a problem that is something like "defending the hypothosis" in mainstream science too.The suggestion is that new evidence does present a problem for a prevailing theory. Modifications are made to the theory to encompass and explain that new evidence.The difficulty is that it is hard to draw a totally clear line between this reasonable process of mainstream science and 'defending the hypothosis'. How clearly the modifications are not the latter may vary with the nature of the problem and the data.It will, I think, look a bit suspicious when you are at the outer edges of what we know. Thus the introduction of dark matter and dark energy might look like a form of "defending the hypothosis". I have only recently learned that there is much more to it than that but all the popular accounts I have read leave it looking something like an ad-hoc defence.I think that the simple assertion that the energy released in the compton effect is quantized (one of Einstein's 1905 papers IIRC) looks a bit ad-hoc. It turned out, of course, to be anything but that. However, can one tell at the time for absolutley sure?