Applying Science to Past Events

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The day of the eclipse is the test. So with the positive test the hypothesis is now a theory that can take on all comers.

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OK, now let's take this to the next step. Let's pretend that someone recorded the eclips but I had not made my hypothesis yet. Is the data any different because I had not written my hypothesis yet? Does the moon only follow a predictable course if someone on earth comes up with a theory. Do the thoughts of men change the course of the moon so that it is constant when before it was not constant? Of course not, so past eclipses can be used to verify a hypothesis that I make today. Therefore, theories made today can be confirmed or falsified by historical data.

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Your witness of writing it is present observation.
Likewise the DNA analagy.

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So present observation of DNA can be used to verify the validity of evolution and common ancestory? You are saying that evolution can be tested?

No .People who calcuate eclipses are having verified thier predictions when the eclipse shows up. Nothing to do with gravity laws.
You have before tried to say theoretical and applied science is my problem. It isn't I've been clear on addressing the point of the scientif method. Science is or is not. words matter.OK I like your baseball analagy.The baseball amongst shattered glass. Now lets apply the scientific method to it. (you first just kidding)Since it was apast event I say the method can't be done.
However YES the weighing of evidence can take place here and lead to a correct conclusion. But the parenmt who does it is not engaged in Science.
Also because the method can not be used the conclusion is more open to error. As follows. Instead of the ball having come thru the window someone first broke the window with no ball in sight and then placed a ball there later to trap the owner of the ball.
The evidence is open to interpretation. No conclusion can be reached yet.
The scientific method cound say can the evidence be falsified. As I just did. But there can be no test of the event to show the truth.
Reasonable conclusion but not science.
Your ball

Yes,as you said ,past eclipses can be used to verify a hypothesis made today.YES I agree.
Therefore
"Theories made today can be confirmed or falsified by historical data" you said.
Yes I think I agree with that.
But the operative word is HISTORICAL data.
Rob

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

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"Theories made today can be confirmed or falsified by historical data" you said.
Yes I think I agree with that.
But the operative word is HISTORICAL data.

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And the other operative word is "theory". Therefore, the scientific method can be used to test scientific theories by using occurences that happened in the past. This includes fossils, dating methodologies, etc.

Yes I agree the operative word is also theory. I presume your phrasing means you agree the other operative word is HISTORICAL data.Yes the scientific method can be used to test scientific theories with occurances from the past. WOW we seem to at last be coming to a great mutual conclusion. Oh Oh wait a minute.NO absolutely not .Fossils and dating methods etc are not historical data.m They are just data that is interpretated to be something.
They are not open to testing. Just a snapshot of a past momment.Well close but no cigar.When I say historical I mean witnessed by human beings. As a experiment in 1666 could be used today for a scientific theory without actually repeating the experiment.You didn't demonstrate how a past occurance can be tested today. You only repeated that evidence with a premise interpretation can be used to test a theory today.
Rob

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

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NO absolutely not .Fossils and dating methods etc are not historical data.m They are just data that is interpretated to be something.

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Fossils are the remains of a once living organism. We don't need eyewitnesses to tell us that, unless you are arguing that fossils are only rocks. They are interpreted just like any other data set, including historically recorded eclipses.

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They are not open to testing. Just a snapshot of a past momment.

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A recorded solar eclipse is just a snapshot as well. Fossils are open to testing as they are a physical entity, otherwise called evidence or observation. If their evolutionary order is wrong, then we should find daughter species below the parent species in the fossil record. Since we don't see this in the fossil record then we know the interpretation (evolution) is consistent with the data (fossils). The data (fossils) can test the theory (ToE).

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When I say historical I mean witnessed by human beings. As a experiment in 1666 could be used today for a scientific theory without actually repeating the experiment.

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And a rock forming now can be used today for a scientific theory without having to witness the rock being formed millions of years ago.

To your first paragraph.
And until historical records or an observation take place there has been no science only hypothesis.
I'm not trying to be unreasonable here. Where does my logic break down?You offered me the baseball analagy and I demonstrated it also broke down as a process open to the scientific method. YES it is evidence. But evidence of what? It is not scientific evidence that is it is not evidence that has successfully withstood the special method ofr testing,falsifying etc.i'm a little surprised that after all this discussion you bring up the example of the astronomers.
They do not have a image of what it looked like billions of years ago.
All they have is what they have and then they make an interpretation of what it means.
To say this is what it was like billions of years ago has no evidence behind it. It is only a observation of what is now the case. It is not the conclusion of the scientific method.
Perhaps you or anyone out there in tv land could bring up a killer analagy that would settle the matter once and for all
Rob

To all you said I agrre. But again Is it Science? We are taliking about the scientific method here and if it is or can be used for past/future events.
The tracks of an animal are evidence. But can the scientific method be employed here to dertermine whether it actually was. After all the tracks could of been faked to lead the hunters to a ambush. They have evidence and draw a conclusion but it would be wrong to say they are employed in science.
Rob

This is just not an accurate analysis Loudmouth. Historically recorded eclipses are not interpretated. They are rock solid facts.No interpretation need play here. They are factual data.A fossil is only a fact of what it is in hand and not a fact to its origin or any other connection. That is interpretation. Why is there confusion here for one of us.
A recorded solar eclipse is a snapshot of what it is. The eclipse happening and witnessed by a human.
The fossil is also of what it is and nothing more of connection.The rock analagy demonstrates that the rock formed today is evidence only of its particular forming.
It can be used to hypothesis how unwitnessed rocks formed but those rocks indeed having been formed is not evidenced by the recent rocfk.
Also I would add rocks forming rarely takes place now if ever and its formation would indicate the tremendous pressures needed and so refute slow geological change.
Rob

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This is just not an accurate analysis Loudmouth. Historically recorded eclipses are not interpretated. They are rock solid facts.No interpretation need play here.A fossil is only a fact of what it is in hand and not a fact to its origin or any other connection. That is interpretation. Why is there confusion here for one of us.

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The interpretation of historically recorded eclipses is that they were recorded accurately, that they were caused by the same moon as we see today, that they were full eclipses and not partial eclipses, etc. The data is what is written. The same for fossils. The fossils themselves are the fact. That they are the remains of a living organism is a fact. The interpretation is their connection with other fossils which is tested by comparing the ordering of the fossils and the shape of the fossils. Therefore, by applying the scientific method to the data (fossils) the interpretation of the fossils can be checked. If there is no connection between the fossils then the interpretations should fail to predict their order in the fossil record. Since the prediction (the interpretation) matches the order of the data (fossils) then evolutionary theories can pass the test through the scientific method.Where are you confused on this, it isn't that hard. The fossil is the data, how to group fossils is the theory.

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The rock analagy demonstrates that the rock formed today is evidence only of its particular forming.

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And again we run into "solar eclipses today can not be used to test solar eclipses of the past". Either you claim that the laws of physics are different in the past or you have to admit that current observations of geology are the same now as they would have been in the past.

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

It takes light a bit more than 5 hours to get from Pluto to the sun. Since Earth spins much faster than Pluto, it's on average the same time for light to get from Pluto to Earth.You are correct in your point, though, but this detail is just so wrong...This message has been edited by Melchior, 09-07-2004 04:34 PM

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