Induction and Science

It's right there in step two. Comparing the same characteristic of two objects is trivial, but you're making it into something more than it is. Measurement is not the act of putting a ruler next to a desk; it's the act of comparing a known physical trait to an unknown one. That's a deductive process.

This: Is not a response to this: Comparing the same characteristics, as I specified, is trivial. It's trivial to measure the dimensions of apples, be they green or red. And it's trivial to measure the color of apples of any size. I can think of several easy ways to do it, specific to the measurement of each characteristic. If I wanted to measure the volume of an object I could immerse it and measure the displacement. Weight is trivial. Mass slightly less so. (I would probably measure its inertia.) Length? I suppose that means determining the long aspect of the object, but again, inertia and the center of mass can be used to properly orient the object for measurement.I mean, seriously. These things don't sound that hard. I'm not trying to be overconfident, and maybe you have a different definition of "non-trivial" than I do. But these things seem trivial if one simply applies a little creativity. The same as one would have to do in a mathematical proof.

And what characteristic is that? It's fruitness? I'm sorry, but your response is apples and oranges, if you'll pardon the pun. Who said anything about water? And you have? I'm curious, now. Specifically, which robotic systems have you designed?

How did we wind up arguing the exact opposite side of the argument we each started on?It seems to me that if you're arguing that measurement requires proceeding from things you already know, or assume, then you're arguing the same basic point I started out making, and you started out attacking - measurment is deductive.

Four years later, I'm still waiting for you to tell me what else is left besides induction.

It kind of constrains the debate, though.I'll be honest, I'm not going to go back over four years of posts, for the very simple reason that you were nonresponsive and evasive at the beginning and you've been nonresponsive and evasive here at the end, so there's no reason to believe that it's somehow different in the middle.And honestly it's as obvious now as it was then - science is primarily a process where generalities are derived from specifics; that's induction or induction-like. Reasoning about a population based on a representative sample? Inductive. Reasoning about universal laws of physics based on experiments located only on Earth? Inductive. Certainly there are examples of science proceeding from other means, but that some science may not be inductive in the narrowest possible sense does not mean that science is not an inductive process - it pretty obviously is, regardless of what questions you'd prefer not to answer.

We could, if you wanted, but I think my views have tempered somewhat - I'm prepared to accept that at least some people are engaged in real empiricial science in the field of economics. I'm still of the opinion that economics is primarily a way for people to identify as partisan in the supposedly non-partisan academic arena, but I've come to accept that at least some economists are genuinely interested in solving problems in a scientific way.If you have an interesting challenge to that view, I'm prepared to talk about it.

Would you consider drawing conclusions about populations based on samples of the population to be "inductive"? It strikes me as fairly inductive to say "this randomly-selected subpopulation had this distribution of characteristics; thus we conclude that the population as a whole has the same distribution, to a certain percent of confidence." Or, is your argument that the provisional, statistical qualification of the conclusion ("we're 95% certain that our sample population accurately represents the whole") disqualifying for true induction? Don't you think it's more a way of getting propositions from observations?

Well, ok. What are the axioms? I've done mathematical induction, many times, and I can assure you that theorems are used. So I don't see the mere presence of mathematical theorems as disqualifying induction. If this were the case - how could mathematicians produce inductive proofs?Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Not the axioms for the math, the axioms for the science. *sigh*If you insist. So, then, what are the axioms?

Funny - I'm a semester away from a BS in biochemistry and I've still not been taught anything I would consider axiomatic (except in the math curriculum.) Everything I've learned is the result of practical experimentation and observation - the specific.I don't perceive science as anything even close to a process where specifics are derived from general axioms assumed (not proven) to be true. Could you explain how it is that you seem to?

I'm disappointed that, four years in, you're not yet prepared to actually advance and defend a position.Troubling.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Someone who was interested in genuine debate would remove all ambiguity about their position by responding to misunderstandings by making a clear and concise restatement of it.But someone who is just interested in playing games would respond as you've been doing - by asserting that nobody understands what you mean, but not doing anything that would help them understand.It's clear which one you are.

Well, but you are. Straggler gives a great example of someone who's actually engaged in the debate, not playing a game:

quote:

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It has been demonstrated to you that science does use induction...It has been demonstrated to you that science does indeed utilises inductive reasoning in it's methods and that it does so to great practical effect.

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Do you think anybody is going to misunderstand what Straggler is saying, here? I don't. (I've redacted for space, what with Stragger's post being directly above mine, and all.)That's what it looks like when someone is serious. This is what it looks like when someone is playing games: Debaters talk about their positions. Game-players talk about the debate.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

If it was wrong, and you were someone who debated instead of playing games, you would show that it was wrong.But because you're a game-player and not a debater, you just assert that you've already shown that it was wrong, leaving us in a situation of competing characterizations of the debate instead of competing positions to be argued. These are games, not anything that supports your contentions. These are playground taunts, not evidence.Disappointing.