71–80 of 189 posts
we can see our nose all the time, but our brain filters it out. if you close one eye and keep the other open you'll suddenly see one side of your nose.
We also have a blind spot in each eye where our optic nerve passes through our retina, which the brain constantly edits out.
Science doesn't "prove" hypotheses - it disproves them. For this to work, a hypothesis must be falsifiable. Most pseudoscience (and religion) makes non-falsifiable claims, meaning they are incompatible with scientific discourse. This simple observation is a powerful tool in any bullshit-detection kit. Once produced, a scientific hypothesis of any merit will be attacked vigorously with experiments until enough parties…
Ironically, of course, Popperian falsifiability is itself unfalsafiable, and therefore does not meet its own definition as a member of itself. Popper knew this, by the way. So the inverse to the trap you point out here is the claims that "if not falsifiable, then unable to be true/useful", which is just as specious.
What systems for determining the truth exist that aren't built on top of some fundamental axioms?
That when we look up at distant stars, nebulas, & galaxies and the like...we are looking back in time. What we see could have been gone for decades, centuries, or longer.
“longer” is an understatement. The Andromeda galaxy, which is viewable by the naked eye, is 2.5 million lightyears away. And that’s the closest galaxy to us. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ironically, of course, Popperian falsifiability is itself unfalsafiable, and therefore does not meet its own definition as a member of itself. Popper knew this, by the way. So the inverse to the trap you point out here is the claims that "if not falsifiable, then unable to be true/useful", which is just as specious.
Isn't this like saying if X is an axiom and you can prove Y via X, you shouldn't trust Y is true because you can't prove X is true? What systems for determining the truth exist that aren't built on top of some fundamental axioms?
my point is that "we define science as empirical falsificationism" is itself nonscientific by its own definition, and that that's OK, still capable of being true, and is a handy way to get stuff done.
Science doesn't "prove" hypotheses - it disproves them. For this to work, a hypothesis must be falsifiable. Most pseudoscience (and religion) makes non-falsifiable claims, meaning they are incompatible with scientific discourse. This simple observation is a powerful tool in any bullshit-detection kit. Once produced, a scientific hypothesis of any merit will be attacked vigorously with experiments until enough parties…
Not a fact per se, but: the sheer amount of living things that came before me, in the sense of my direct ancestors and their direct ancestors etc. etc – not only my human ancestors, but the whole of my ancestors all the way back to the origins of life itself – and I would not be here today if even one of them would have died before reproducing... that manages to blow my mind every single time I think about it.
Science doesn't "prove" hypotheses - it disproves them. For this to work, a hypothesis must be falsifiable. Most pseudoscience (and religion) makes non-falsifiable claims, meaning they are incompatible with scientific discourse. This simple observation is a powerful tool in any bullshit-detection kit. Once produced, a scientific hypothesis of any merit will be attacked vigorously with experiments until enough parties…
To cite a paper I currently read:
> "As Chalmers (1999) remarks, when we turn to history of science, the idea that falsificationism is actively undertaken borders on laughable (see especially Feyerabend, 1975). Not only do scientists exhibit extreme reluctance to falsify their work (Woodward and Goodstein, 1996), but if falsification had been followed as a scientific method, then many of the theories generated by some of the best minds in science would never have progressed beyond their earliest explications (see Chalmers, 1999: ch. 7; Feyerabend, 1975; Kuhn, 1970c: 234; 1970d: 13; Von Dietz, 2001: 22)." (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1350508409104504)
I haven't read all the sources. But it's worth mentioning that your point is controversial.
Nothing can travel faster than light through space, in a vacuum. However, if you pick two points in space that are far enough apart (e.g. at opposite sides of the observable universe), these points will be moving apart faster than light, because space itself is expanding.
The expansion of space isn’t coming from a single point outward, like an explosion. It’s expanding by the same amount at every point in the universe. People analogize this in lower dimensions to stretching fabric or blowing up a balloon.
Science doesn't "prove" hypotheses - it disproves them. For this to work, a hypothesis must be falsifiable. Most pseudoscience (and religion) makes non-falsifiable claims, meaning they are incompatible with scientific discourse. This simple observation is a powerful tool in any bullshit-detection kit. Once produced, a scientific hypothesis of any merit will be attacked vigorously with experiments until enough parties…
The idea you're stating is something like "It's not possible to prove hypothesis H1 if H1 is 'all swans are white' by sampling swans and only getting white ones, but it's possible to disprove hypothesis H1 by finding a black swan."
However, you can prove hypothesis H2 that "there exists a black swan" by finding such a swan. And you can't really disprove it for the same reason that you can't prove H1.
Neither of theses hypotheses are proven/disproven in the mathematical sense of "proof" but finding sufficient evidence in favor or against a hypothesis is practically the same in the case of science.
The Bayesian version of this is that the hypothesis is something like "the probability of a swan being white is P" and the value of P will by updated based on the strength of the evidence. It will never be exactly 0 or 1, but it will be close enough in many cases. Then you avoid the argument about whether a hypothesis is a binary "true" or "false" but discuss a continuous probability. E.g, the a hypothesis about the Earth being round has a probability close to one for most people while Russell's teapot and Sagan's invisible dragon have probabilities close to zero until evidence shows otherwise.
The physics & biology behind eyesight. Our eyes collect light that is "left over"(not reflected) from other surfaces. Can't explain why but I had always had a sense that objects somehow emanated their own "image". Learning that colors manifest themselves because every other wavelength was absorbed was fascinating.