Applying Science to Past Events

I'm confused. Are you objecting to the scientific method, or to the man-in-the-street's perception of the scientific method? If the latter, then join the club in bemoaning the scientific ignorance of the public-at-large.--Percy

We can not only project the motion of celestial bodies forward to predict future events, but also backward to confirm past events. For example, we predict future solar and lunar eclipses all the time, and we've confirmed past eclipses reported in ancient texts.You can download software off the net that can tell you the position of celestial bodies at any point in time you care to choose, past or future.What makes you think we can't do this?--Percy

You may be confusing theory with application. Theory must be testable, replicable, falsifiable. Application of theory to a messy real world can be difficult. We're absolutely certain that all the matter involved in a car crash follows Newton's Laws of Motion, but try using them to predict where each car part will end up after the accident and you won't likely get very far. And this happens. We've pointed our spacecraft at planets, moons, comets and asteroids. Most of the time they get there, but sometimes they fail, and sometimes, rarely, they do get hit. The Americans sent a couple probes to Mars and had two active rovers on opposite sides of the planet. The British (I think it was) also sent a probe, and it disappeared while landing. Did it experience a failure? Did a meteor hit it while descending? Did a freak wind gust upset the descent and it crashed? Did bad luck cause it to land on sharp rocks that broke it to bits? I think they still don't know the answer.This only tells us something we already know very well, that what we don't know can cause our best efforts at prediction to fail, so we attempt to nail down as much as we can. But it by no means rules out being able to project what we know to make predictions about the future. You yourself project into the future all the time. You do this every time you get in your car to drive somewhere. But if one day you get a flat tire it won't mean that planning trips isn't possible.--Percy

Assigning your own special meanings to words like "prediction" and "test" will lead to false conclusions. I'm not going to try to untangle the knot you've gotten yourself into, but I suggest you adopt the same terminology as the rest of the world. One tests a theory by checking its predictions, as Loudmouth has just explained. There's nothing to prevent one from predicting what might have happened in the past, or what may happen in the future. One tests these predictions by examining evidence.This is how one does science. This is how everyone operates most of the time when they're just trying to be logical and rational, including yourself. When you find the baseball sitting on the living rug amidst broken glass, you don't have much trouble deciphering what must have happened. You don't say to yourself, "The motions of baseballs now can not be a test of motions of baseballs of the past or future, and therefore I have no idea how this baseball got here."The threads I've chosen to participate in recently leave me feeling more bewildered than Alice in Wonderland. In this thread Robert is arguing we can't examine evidence to figure out what happened in the past. In another thread DarkStar is arguing that his quotes of evolutionary scientists saying that evolution is bogus are valid. In yet another thread WillowTree cannot be persuaded to check distances on a map and complains bitterly of unfair treatment that we think his claims should be examined. In yet another thread, Nothingness says there's no such thing as an apeman, but refuses to define the term. It's a Bizarro world lately. I yearn for a normal discussion.--Percy

I again think you're confusing verifying theory versus applying theory. There are two types of science: theoretical and applied. Those who calculate planetary orbits and eclipses are doing applied science. In other words, they're applying theories that have already been accepted within the scientific community because of the work of theoretical scientists.I think you're making the same mistake as the Gish argument that says that while Creationism isn't science, neither is evolution. But you've broadened the argument to somehow conclude that when Nasa puts a probe on Mars they're not doing science in one of the most mathematical of all fields, astronomy. So when you say something like this: It is hard to take you seriously. Crash's post makes me wonder whether you're aware that by the time your brain makes sense of what your eyes have seen that the event is already in the past. The present is exceedingly fleeting.--Percy

You have replies. I noticed you referenced the same argument about the scientific method in another thread, but I think you should finish discussing your position here before using it as a foundation for other arguments.--Percy

You're still confusing theoretical and applied science. The theory of how gravity affects celestial bodies has been established to near certainty. Calculating future orbital positions of celestial bodies is an application of the theory. No one calculating the future position of the moon or of a spacecraft thinks they are testing gravitational theories.The only thing an observation of an eclipse accomplishes is the verification that people have successfully and without error carried out the math. The theory's already been verified, now it's just being applied. As I asked in my previous message, are you unaware that by the time your brain makes sense of what your eyes have seen that the event is already in the past? The present is exceedingly fleeting. (I know this is nearly identical to what I posted earlier, but your reply reads as if you hadn't read it).What this means is that every observation ever made since the beginning of man has been of events that occurred in the past. What you're reading right now was written in the past, yet you will have no trouble taking it as evidence that I posted this reply to you.--Percy

Newton's era and shortly after, late 1600's and early 1700's. In other words, around 300 years ago. Newton's laws are in some cases insufficient if complete accuracy is desired, and in such cases relativistic effects must be included, such as for the precession of Mercury.You didn't really think that people who calculate eclipses and spacecraft paths thought they were verifying the theory of gravitation, did you? When Nasa first started planning to send the recent spacecraft to Mars, did you really think they thought they had to first verify the theory of gravity? They just take equations like F = (G*m₁*m₂)/d² and apply them. They don't verify them. You *have* heard of theoretical and applied science, right? But it is. Your contention is that events of the past are not amenable to scientific study, but they clearly are, and this is done all the time, including by yourself while reading this message. Whether the evidence is from an event you just witnessed, or is someone's notes from long ago of something they witnessed, or is light that left on its journey to us billions of years ago, this is all valid scientific evidence, and it is all from the past.I've provided examples during this discussion that you haven't addressed. For example, I said my message was evidence from the past that I had written you a message. I said a baseball on the floor of your living room amidst broken glass was all that was needed to have a very good idea of how that baseball got there. It would help if we could enter into a dialogue about these examples, or at least about something, because I'm not really getting any insight into your thinking when you only keep reasserting that evidence from the past can't be part of the scientific method.--Percy

So they're applying known scientific principles to make a prediction about what will happen in the future or what has happened in the past. And they verify that prediction using historical records for the past, or they wait until the predicted time and make observations for the future. Nothing unscientific about it.There is no requirement that evidence be conclusive. Insufficient evidence is still evidence. Concerning the baseball, yes, you would be more certain of events had you been an eyewitness. In that case not only would you have the evidence of the baseball and broken glass on the living room floor, but you'd also have your recollection of the baseball striking the glass. But just because you didn't witness the event itself does not suddenly transform the baseball and broken glass on the floor into non-evidence. Of course it is still evidence.Indirect evidence can be difficult to analyze, and in such cases it can be helpful if there's additional evidence available. For example, the baseball might have struck the coffee table a glancing blow after passing through the window, leaving a mark on the table and a corresponding scuff mark on the ball. This may be sufficient information to deduce speed and trajectory.Astronomers gather their evidence by focusing photons on a light sensitive array. The computer records the photons and builds up an image overnight, or perhaps over several nights. By the time the process is done, the astronmers are looking at a reconstructed computer image of photons that left their source possibly billions of years ago, but the astronomers have never even seen any of those actual photons. All they've got is a computer reconstruction. This is evidence of what the astronomical object looked like possibly billions of years ago, and gathering evidence is part of the scientific method.--Percy

Robert,Loudmouth is just trying to avoid being nit-picky when he allowed your use of the word historical to stand. He is, as he has been all along, referring to evidence created in the past and not witnessed at the time by human beings.Evidence is evidence, no matter how old, no matter when it happened. There is no statute of limits on evidence. There is no "use-by" date. And evidence does not require an eyewitness at its time of creation.Animal tracking is yet another example of evidence from the past that does not require that a human being be present at the time the tracks were made. The success of hunters tells us that this evidence is a reliable indicator of the passage of animals.--Percy

Hi Robert,Evidence is anything apparent to the five senses. There are no special conditions or requirements for an observation made through one or more of our five senses to qualify as potential scientific evidence.Naturally the quality of the observation impacts the scientific quality and therefore utility of the evidence. "It got hot" is not as useful as "It rose to a temperature of 146.2^o F", but both could be useful scientific data depending upon the requirements.This part here may be key to your misunderstanding: You're applying the criteria for theories to evidence. It is theories that can be tested, falsified, supported, accepted and so forth. You appear to be applying the requirements of theory to evidence. Evidence is only that which you can see, hear, feel, smell or taste. Evidence provides the raw data from which we construct, verify and falsify theories. You don't falsify evidence. If you measured the temperature of the solution to be 75^o then that is a fact that is evidence. You don't theorize about it or falsify it.Now, you might have screwed up when reading the thermometer, but that comes under the heading of experimental error. If your reading was wrong because your eye accidentally went to the wrong gradation marker and you later discover this, then all you did was uncover a mistake. You didn't falsify your theory that the thermometer reading was 75^o, because that just isn't the way scientific terminology refers to evidence. You can invent your own lingo, I suppose, but then who are you going to talk to? Why, Robert? Surely you're aware that the entire rest of the world considers astonomy and cosmology to be science. Have you ever stopped to consider that there may be some holes in the way you're thinking about this, and that maybe you need to think about this some more before expressing as certainties what are actually misconceptions. How far away does an object have to be before you decide that the light coming from it can't be used to form an image, Robert? If you see an object across the room, Robert, do you trust what you see? How about across the parking lot? How about across the river? How about across the valley? How about a plane a few miles up in the sky, Robert? Do you trust that image? How about satellites in near-earth orbit only around 100 miles away? Are those real images when we look at them, Robert? How about the space station? How about a spacecraft on its way to the moon? If we focus a telescope on it and observe it, is that a real image?How about the moon itself? It takes light over a second to get here from the moon. Can we trust that the moon is really there? How about the sun? The light from the sun takes 8 minutes to get here.Or how about Pluto? It takes light the better part of a year to get here from there.How about Alpha Centauri, the nearest star after the sun? Light from Alpha Centauri takes four years to get here. Does light from Alpha Centauri form a real image?How about the Andromeda galaxy. It take light thousands of years to reach us from Andromeda. When astromers use a telescope to form an image of Andromeda, is that not a real image?The question for you, Robert, is at what amount of distance can images of objects no longer be trusted. What is that distance, and how did you establish that distance. Because no one else in the world knows about this distance, Robert, just you.A very similar question applies to your rules about evidence from the past that wasn't formed while under the watchful eyes of humans. How long in time must the events be separated from today before their observed effects are no longer evidence. You evidently feel that the time is longer than the 1/4 second or so it takes for images on your eye to register in your brain, but how much longer, Robert? And how did you determine this time?I think you need to do some more thinking.--Percy

Whoops! Sorry about that. My watch must be fast! --Percy

Ah, yes, thank you! This was first described by Einstein, explaining relativity as a second seeming like eternity when you accidentally set your hand on a hot stove, and an hour seeming but only a minute in the presence of a beautiful girl.I evidently had my hand on a hot stove while writing the part about Pluto! --Percy

I'm replying to this out of order, somehow missed it yesterday. Please see my earlier reply, Message 88. Yes, of course. The scientific method is a way of studying the natural world. Animal tracks are part of the natural world. We can, and do, use the scientific method to study animal tracks. This once again highlights your misconception that evidence must lead to correct conclusions. There is no such requirement. You hear the phrase "misleading evidence" all the time. You also often hear the phrases "inconclusive evidence" and "contradictory evidence". Evidence can be inconclusive, contradictory and misleading. That doesn't mean it isn't evidence. And it is the scientists task to make sense of all this evidence and come up with a unified perspective that, if validated, becomes a theory.Discarding evidence simply because it conflicts with other evidence you have, or because it leads you down paths you find unattractive, would be the antithesis of science. And that's basically what you're doing, practicing antiscience. Most scientific evidence leads to conclusions you don't like, so you're inventing excuses for discarding almost all scientific evidence.--Percy

It might be helpful if we referred to an outline of the scientific method. Here's my version:

1. Make observations and gather data.
2. Form a hypothesis.
3. Make some predictions based upon that hypothesis.
4. Test the hypothesis by checking the predictions.
5. If necessary, modify the hypothesis and return to step 3.
6. If the tests pass, then the hypothesis is verified, but still must be replicated by other scientists before it can be considered accepted theory.

No matter what Loudmouth said, this is the scientific method, but what he says seems to follow this pretty well: Moving on: Everything that impacts our senses is interpreted, so everything is an interpretation. What you're really saying is that the more removed from events we are, the less certain we can be, and I don't think anyone would argue with this. But you are further concluding that if we're not 100% certain then it isn't science, and that's where you're wrong. Science, by definition, is not certain. All scientific theories are tentative, which means that they are open to change or ever to complete falsification. 100% certainty is definitely not a requirement. Theories represent only our best understanding of the data. Sure it does. The actions of these laws have effects which we can observe and measure, the very first step of the scientific method. We can then continue with the scientific method and form hypotheses about these laws, and then formulate predictions based upon our hypotheses and test those predictions to see if they hold up.Here's an example. We measure the absorption spectrum of hydrogen in the lab through experiment, observation and data gathering. We hypothesize that the absorption spectrum of hydrogen is the same throughout the universe and throughout all time. We look out into space and measure the absorption spectrum of hydrogen clouds at varying distances from us, which means varying amounts of time ago, and we find the absorption spectrum of hydrogen is always the same as what we found in the lab. Our hypothesis has been verified via the scientific method.--Percy