Induction and Science

I think you're overlooking a piece of nwr's point... F = maGiven a mass, m, with an acceleration, a, the force cannot be anything other than F because that is how F is defined.This F force isn't some thing that was stumbled upon through induction, it was derived and defined as that.In that other thread, Message 513, nwr wrote:

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Another method is to define a standard, such that observations are to be made in accordance with that standard. Then all observations that are made by following that standard will have the appearance of being specific instances of the general statement which is the standard.

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I say that Newton was setting standards. And we are still using some of Newton's standards even today. The Wikipedia definition of "dyne" is pretty much the restatement of one of Newton's laws in the form of a standard of measurement.

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I'll write another reply that we can argue about, when I find some more time, but I just thought I'd chime in here and try to show you what I thought you were missing.

See, I'm not so sure about that bolded part.For things like Pi (3.14159...), I'd expect, say, an alien culture from the planet Arcturus (an internet high five to anyone who gets that reference [escept Oni 'cause I know he knows]) to come to the exact same number as we have, because its an intrinsic property of the world.But I would not expect them to come to the same categorizations of things like mass and accelaration and the force that those yield. They might have F = xyz, where they're defining force in a way that employs something else that we don't.Ya know what I mean? You see the difference? But the F can't be anything other than the m times the a because that's what it is defined as being. We don't need to induce anything about the future to maintain a definition... well, maybe some things but they'd be ridiculous to question.The point is that F=ma is different from a theory like 'All swans are white' because it doesn't use the same inductive process. Or maybe he's not really saying what you think he is. I'm not sure what is meant by a "universal standard"... I'd guess it would be somehting like Pi.But I am getting the point of there being scientific stuffs that haven't employed the inductive process.Although I do see that science can and does use induction.I think his point has been better expressed in other posts (and in other threads), but I'm not putting the time into outlining it

I don't think so. No. F, what that capital letter is representing, equals mass time acceleration. It is defined as that and cannot be anything else. Correct. Anything else would not be F. No. If you had a force that was not equal to mass times acceleration, then you would not have the F.The alien culture could have their own F₂ that was proportional to m², like I explained in the message you replied to. Really!? Of course not. Gawd! This is a totally different subject. As the point is, this isn't an inductive issue.

That's beside the point. I'm not saying that induction is never used. I'm saying that in the particular instance of the 2nd law, it wasn't.And actually, that 3rd law doesn't apply to 'every' and 'always', its for specific situations. E.g. a ball of jello isn't going to exert an equal and opposite force on a ball of lead because the jello will deform.I don't think that one's going to help.

ABE: I see you've answered some of my questions in the previous post: what we're talking about as universal principles and whether or not you've done experiments in a physics lab... There's no need to answer them again here, and nothing really else that needs to be addressed, so I'll hide it and reply to your another post. Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

No, I am simply not talking about application. I'm just talking about the derivation.Back in the Peanut Gallery thread, you replied to this from nwr:

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Specifically, I do not agree that Newton was making a generalization based on limited specific observations.

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by asking what he was doing.Now, in this thread I see this from you in Message 347: It stems back to Message 327: I brought in F=ma to show that you can have something like a universal principle without having to use inductive logic to get it. I thought you were simply overlooking something and did not intend to argue much about it. That's beside the point I wanted to raise here. But now, with your other post on what you're talknig about as universal principles, I'n not so sure that F=ma is really a relevant example of that.

Hey RAZD,My Thanksgiving was awesome, thanks.A bit of a side point, but this is the same point I entered this debate with... I thought other's were saying that you cannot have scientific theories without induction, and now I see you looking like you're on a slippery slope.I brought up the law "F = m*a" earlier so lets just use that again. I see laws like this as descriptive definition rather than an explanatory theory. I don't think it really relies on induction and that it can be said to be true/fact. I mean, F cannot be anything other than m*a.So yeah, theories that are laws can possibly be said to be true/fact.

No, theoretically it could be falsified. Besides, doesn't Special Relativity muck it up?But F cannot be anything other than m*a, otherwise it wouldn't be F. That's what "=" means.

Equivocally, I suppose.As you said: "They are exceptionally good approximations to almost all practically encountered situations."I guess if you want to say that because there an exception then we shouldn't be calling it "true", then you're right.But then, if F=ma is not true, doesn't your point about the inductive applications of it also fail?Regardless, isn't it still a decent example of a way that science can yield theories without needing induction?

Nope, which is why its wierd that you're doing that to F=ma. I'll take that as a yes.