What is the power of prediction?

A real prediction is a prediction about the future. I predict that a certain space object will be in a particular precise location at a particular time according to my figures based on the theory of relativity.Somebody else is going to predict the future location of this object by the standard Newtonian method. By this method, the object is supposed to be a little to the left of my prediction.We take a look at this object and sure enough it ends up exactly where I said it would. Good evidence for the truth of the theory of relativity.Later we repeat it with a different object. Same result.That's a prediction. That is convincing.

That's not a prediction. You shouldn't call it that.

That's a prediction if you find the intermediate fossil AFTER you make this comment.

No thanks. I prefer to just deny things.Let me explain why one sort of "prediction" is not as convincing as another sort, even though they are both called "predictions."The sort of prediction you are talking about is not a prediction about the future, but an idea about what something would be like probably, if such-and-such theory is true.If evolution is true, there should be this "heirarchy" of life forms. We knew that there was this set-up already in the 18th century. Men, for example, would be very similar in some ways to apes, less similar to other primates, and then even less similar to more distant relatives. Morphological or DNA--doesn't matter. The genotype determines the phenotype.What does this prove? In regard to evolutionary theory, it tells us that this heirarchical set-up that we find does not falsify the theory. If evolution is true, such a set-up would presumably have to be the case. Such in fact is the case.What kind of convincingnesss does this have? It has some, but not nearly as much the real prediction I gave above.That's why we need to make a distinction between these two types of "prediction."

If you already had the intermediate fossil, you didn't predict anything. You just noted it. It's more convincing if you can predict something that is going to happen.If you didn't have the intermediate fossil, and you predicted that if such a fossil could be found, it would have the predicted chracteristics, then that's better proof.This happened I think with the lizard-bird they found(prediction of birds descending from dinosaurs, 19th century.) That's convincing.

This ungraspability is perhaps the problem. Sounds like something for Percy to ponder.

I did? What on earth are you doing adding an "s" to "evidence"? I do see your point, but I don't think we should call the process you are describing a "prediction." It's very misleading.And I still don't see how such "evidences" add up to a certainty comparable to our knowledge that the earth revolves around the sun. Everytime we send a rocket up we prove that. We can't send a rocket back in time.

My point is not irrelevant. The op asks if some predictions are better than others. Answer: yes. This notion aobut science always being uncertain is a mere pedantry. We are talking about relative certainties. It is MORE certain that the earth revolves around the sun than that TOE with all its ramifications is true.Why is it more certain? Because of the nature of the evidence, that's why. Everybody keeps throwing out the term "congruence," as if all they have to do is mention that and the whole problem's solved. They are going to have to be a little more specific than that.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 03-10-2006 07:05 AM

It's hard for me to comment on this without more a notion of what you mean by a "pattern." For example, what?