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Author | Topic: Induction and Science | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Are you seriously suggesting that predictions (such as eclipses) have not achieved "consensus acceptance by a large body of scientists"?
The entirety of applied science is based on the inductively reasoned conclusion that natural phenomenon will behave in the future as they have been observed to behave thus far. Yet you call such conclusions "guesses" or "opinions". Your position is ridiculous.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Ah, sigh. That sounds like a good old apologetics argument to me. I would prefer actual evidence. If you'd like evidence of what pragmatism means I suppose you could look it up. I know you have the capacity to do that, so I didn't want to patronise you too much.
I have never denied that Newton's laws were general statements. But that they are general statements does not demonstrate that they were arrived at by means of induction from specific observations. Fantastic - I'm not claiming that because they are general therefore they were arrived at by means of induction. Newton could have seen them in a dream for all I care for the point I'm making.
Oh, bullshit. How many specific evidences to you need to support the general statement "There are 100 centimetres in a metre"? That's not an empirical claim, its tautologous, so is not relevant to a discussion on science.
But we can accept that it is a generalisation that science justifies by supporting it with a smaller set of specific cases.
So are we supposed to accept that on faith, without any actual evidence? Unless you claim that scientists take the third law of motion on faith, I don't think I need to. But the methodology of science strongly suggests that before a law can be accepted, it must have evidence of being true.
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Jon writes: Next time try not starting from a bullshit premise. Jon if you accept that not all premises are equally valid then you necessarily accept that not all deductively derived conclusions are equally valid. Welcome to sanity.
Jon writes: Straggler writes: Because purely deductive methods mean that - Nonsense In = Nonsense Out Okay. Bear this in mind the next time you start deducing things from premises without considering the validity or origin of the premises themselves.
Jon writes: Straggler writes: So we have to have some way of deriving our starting point for deductive logic. Sure. Not sure how this has any bearing on whether inductive arguments are merely deductive arguments with unstated premises, though. Because the premises of your little logic exercise are themselves inductively derived. Your premise that unobserved phenomenon will behave in the same way as observed phenomenon is itself inductively derived from experience. Between periods of observation the world appears to have continued to operate as it did whilst you were observing it. Thus you inductively conclude that it did and always will.
Jon writes: To falsify it, you need only provide one example of an argument that is inductive that cannot be made deductive by adding missing premises. Your little logic exercise is itself derived from inductive reasoning. How funny is that?
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Jon Inactive Member |
Oh, Straggler, still not ready to address the topic yet, eh?
Jon if you accept that not all premises are equally valid then you necessarily accept that not all deductively derived conclusions are equally valid. You seem to be conflating different notions of 'validity'. I have never accepted that all premises are 'equally valid' under the notion of 'validity' that you use; and under the notion of 'validity' that I use, 'valid premise' is a meaningless phrase. Also, this has nothing to do with the topic.
Bear this in mind the next time you start deducing things from premises without considering the validity or origin of the premises themselves. Again, just more conflation with no attempt whatsoever to address the topic.
Your premise that unobserved phenomenon will behave in the same way as observed phenomenon is itself inductively derived from experience. It wasn't a premise per se; it was an assumption. And where it originated, is, of course, unimportant. Now, how about trying to address the topic?
Between periods of observation the world appears to have continued to operate as it did whilst you were observing it. Any attempt to support the axiom that 'the observance or non-observance of something will not impact its nature' with evidence that is observationally-derived is pointless. And proving it with unobserved evidence, is, of course, non-scientific and thus irrelevant to the topic of this thread.
Your little logic exercise is itself derived from inductive reasoning. Of course, that remains to be demonstrated. You've been asked several times to provide a (relevant) counter-argument to my original claim:
quote: Should I interpret your unwillingness to do this as indication of your inability to do this, or do you actually have something to say on this matter? Jon Edited by Jon, : Now+ Check out Apollo's Temple!
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
I have provided you with the source of your premises and shown your argument to be ultimately inductive in the process.
The conclusion that the world will always continue to operate when unobserved as it does when observed is inductively derived. Unless you can provide a deductive source for your premises you remain refuted.
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Jon Inactive Member |
I have provided you with the source of your premises and shown your argument to be ultimately inductive in the process. LOL.
The conclusion that the world will always continue to operate when unobserved as it does when observed is inductively derived. False. Assumptions (axioms) are by definition derived from nothing.
Unless you can provide a deductive source for your premises you remain refuted. LOL. Jon Check out Apollo's Temple!
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Stephen Push Member (Idle past 4860 days) Posts: 140 From: Virginia, USA Joined: |
Jon writes: A1: The observance or non-observance of something will not impact its nature, w/ some exceptions (axiom) A1 is false, unless your exceptions include quantum phenomena. Even if you treat quantum phenomena as an exception, there is no way to know whether A1 is true. In effect you have, as others have already pointed out, used induction to derive your axiom. Similarly, deductive arguments in science that started with premises the truth of which were unknowable would be useless formalisms. That is one reason why science often has to rely on induction. Edited by Stephen Push, : No reason given. Edited by Stephen Push, : No reason given. Edited by Stephen Push, : No reason given.
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Blue Jay writes:
My main point was that the word "consistent" was being used in a way that I could not work out what was meant. It's a bit hard to respond to an argument when you can't tell what is being argued.
So, you're arguing that even a random natural phenomenon could be considered a "consistent" phenomenon? Blue Jay writes:
I'm not a biologist. I don't know enough about the situation to be able to hazard a guess.Picture a specific misrepair mutation, ... Jesus was a liberal hippie
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Blue Jay writes:
No, it was the confusion between the actions of science as an institution, and the actions of individual scientists. I see it as important to keep those distinct.
---was it just the anthropomorphism that bothered you? Blue Jay writes:
I thought I was asking a rhetorical question, and not actually saying anything.If, when you say, "...those predictions should be considered predictions of science..." you mean, "...we should say that they are what the entire body of scientists worldwide would predict," then no, we should not consider those predictions to be the predictions of science. To get back to my point, it seems to me that scientists make predictions, but science as an institution does not. Here's a recent headline: Odds of Life on Nearby Planet '100 Percent,' Astronomer SaysThat's a prediction by a scientist. Should we say that science, as an institution, is making that prediction? Jesus was a liberal hippie
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Straggler writes:
For the moment, I'll go with my response to Blue Jay in Message 249.Are you seriously suggesting that predictions (such as eclipses) have not achieved "consensus acceptance by a large body of scientists"? When we use an expression of the form "science predicts ...", I'm inclined to say that is a metaphoric way of speaking.
Straggler writes:
That sounds like creationist (as in ID) reasoning.The entirety of applied science is based on the inductively reasoned conclusion that natural phenomenon will behave in the future as they have been observed to behave thus far. Jesus was a liberal hippie
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Modulous writes:
I'm calling foul on that. The particular discussion was on inductive support for Newton's third law. You are twisting it to pretend that it was about pragmatism.
If you'd like evidence of what pragmatism means I suppose you could look it up. Modulous writes:
You still don't get it, do you.Unless you claim that scientists take the third law of motion on faith, I don't think I need to. But the methodology of science strongly suggests that before a law can be accepted, it must have evidence of being true. Newton's third law is a convention, an empirical principle. It is prior to any evidence. Jesus was a liberal hippie
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
I'm calling foul on that. The particular discussion was on inductive support for Newton's third law. You are twisting it to pretend that it was about pragmatism. The quoted section which you called apologetics and demanded evidence was about induction and pragmatics.
That's not induction. That's pragmatism. You are accepting what works. I agree that science is very pragmatic. What I am questioning is the use of induction, not the use of pragmatism.
Induction is pragmatic.
Maybe, though I think that's a stretch. Induction can often lead to wrong conclusions, and that does not seem very pragmatic to me. That's just wordplay. We use it, not because it is perfect but because it works often enough to justify using it. That's pragmatics. And it is far more pragmatic to be occasionally wrong (as long as you admit it ahead of time (principle of fallibilism)), than to not be able to make any general scientific statements based on limited evidence. It also ignores the methods used by science to minimise the frequency of erroneous inductions: statistical reasoning. (Again, a very pragmatic thing to do)
Ah, sigh. That sounds like a god old apologetics argument to me. I would prefer actual evidence. Next time you ask for evidence - try specifying what it is you are asking evidence for, it'll help avoid these issues.
You still don't get it, do you. Newton's third law is a convention, an empirical principle. It is prior to any evidence. Apparently I do get it. As I said, Newton could have derived them from a dream, or indeed a bag of scrambled letters and numbers. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and that's where the science gets done. In science as it is actually done we make use of evidence. Whether the evidence leads to the formulation of the law, or the law is supported by the evidence afterwards does not matter. It is the evidence comparison to the law that involves the inductive leap whichever order that comparison happens to occur in. Deriving a law can be done empirically in science - whether or not you believe Newton's laws were not.
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Modulous writes:
I withdraw the "calling foul" and apologize for that. I was careless in my checking back to the preceding argument.
The quoted section which you called apologetics and demanded evidence was about induction and pragmatics.
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Stephen Push Member (Idle past 4860 days) Posts: 140 From: Virginia, USA Joined: |
nwr writes: Newton's third law is a convention, an empirical principle. It is prior to any evidence. I don't believe that the third law just popped into Newton's head without evidence. In Principia Newton cites the example of a horse pulling a rope tied to a stone. Later observations and experiments have confirmed the law, but prior evidence must have inspired Newton to propose it.
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Stephen Push writes:
He probably noticed that it was an unstated assumption in several previous centuries of practice (such as when weighing things). And that he stated it, rather than leaving it unstated, was possibly because he needed it in his mathematics to prove the conservation of momentum.
I don't believe that the third law just popped into Newton's head without evidence.
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