SCIENCE: -- "observational science" vs "historical science" vs ... science.

It is true that the confidence factors alone might not do that in every case.However scatter plots of things that are supposed to be linear but which show a relatively low correlation factor might well suggest a low confidence in the underlying theory. A theory that predicts a specific value which we can only measure very approximately would provide low confidence whereas a value that matches precisely a known value would provide greater confidence. As an example, the ability of GR to accurately predict the perihelion anomaly of mercury provides much more confidence in GR than if the theory could only predict the order of magnitude of the anomaly.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Okay Percy. You've piqued my interest enough for me to get off my lazy butt.I'm reading this while I struggle with an opengles issue, so I cannot focus as intently as I'd like. I'll comment in more detail on the paper when I can spend devote some time to the issue, which will probably go beyond reading the paper. I have some time tomorrow,What I can say about the paper is that most of the analysis supporting the authors' conclusions is not actually present in this paper. I would expect that the material in the Diffraction by Helices section alludes to a statistical analysis of data. The section describes what a diffraction by a double helix ought to look like, and surely something other than a subjective comparison "looks like a match to me" was used to compare the expected data with the pattern that was obtained from experiment.Maybe not, but those are my thoughts for now. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Here's a slide show showing that all that was needed was to make measurements of an X-ray diffraction pattern: Franklin's X-ray diffraction, explanation of X-ray pattern. You have to click on the little icon in the lower right hand corner of the slide to advance. Crick and Watson used simple math, not statistics.But this issue isn't really relevant to the main discussion. I was only providing a counterexample to PaulK's claim that "any quantitative result...will involve statistics."My simple point is only that science that involves math and/or statistics doesn't have a higher confidence factor that it is telling us things that are true about the real world than science that does not. Neither approach to science comes with any such confidence factor. What becomes accepted in science is a human process, not a mathematical one. All the math in the universe never convinced Einstein that God plays dice.--Percy

Sure, but even if it predicted Mercury's orbit to 20 digits of accuracy, is the confidence factor for GR greater or lesser than that for the idea that continents move. I'm only saying that no such confidence factors exist, and that therefore such comparisons cannot be made in any mathematical sense.--Percy

Faith responds to HBD's Message 457 in her blog post That annoying complaint about the terms "prove" and "proof": Scientists use the word "prove" all the time, but they do not use it in any mathematical sense. All they mean is that they can support their contentions with evidence. Telling scientists that "You can't prove such-and-so" makes no sense, since of course they can support their contentions with evidence. They only make claims when they have evidence. It would make no sense to make claims completely unsupported by evidence.So since it makes no sense to say "You can't prove such-and-so" for a claim that is supported by evidence, one can only assume that "prove" is meant in a mathematical sense, and then one can only respond that there is no such thing as "prove" in science. Hypotheses and theories can be supported by the evidence to varying degrees, but they can never be proven.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Focus my 1st sentence only on the word "prove".

"Well, you can't prove it--its just a theory."How often have we heard something similar from the creationist zealots like Faith? This does not reflect so much an ignorance of how science works as it does a complete rejection of what science is.Creationists like Faith are inherently anti-science. They have to be.In order to reject the findings of science that show their beliefs are wrong, they have to reject the scientific method and some of the evidence. Undermining science as somehow inherently flawed lets them cling to their beliefs.Faith is the poster child for this.The "observational science" vs "historical science" garbage is just the most recent attempt creationists are making to separate the sciences they agree with from the ones they have to reject. This way they don't have to take the extreme position of rejecting all of science. A simple, "Were you there?" is enough to let them convince themselves that some fields of science are inherently flawed and thus produce inaccurate results."Sure, we put a man on the moon. Now, that's real science! But how can you know the age of the earth? Were you there?"What nonsense!

If you've provided such an example it seems to be well hidden. Whoa, Percy. Let's instead follow the discussion in the paper you referenced. Unless you are telling me that looking at slides are the sum total of Franklin's work, they are not all that helpful. Statistics often is simple math. You are sure there was no use of best fit lines or anything similar? No evaluation of any distinctions between predicted and expected results? Pitch just looked at and considered constant with no analysis? I don't understand how you reach your conclusion about analysis that is at best, only outlined or hinted at in the paper.Further, I'd add that Crick and Watson's work relied heavily on the data collected and analyzed of Rosalind Franklin, something also given no mention in the paper.You may be right, but I'm not yet convinced. It turns out that Einstein should have been convinced.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

In hindsight, we should have written them down for her.

All statistics is math, but not all math is statistics. I was merely rebutting PaulK's claim that all research with numerical results involves statistics. Okay, so don't be convinced, but the specifics of the paper I chose as an example wasn't the point, so just forget that paper. All I need to successfully rebut PaulK's claim that all research with numerical results involves statistics is a single example. Do you really think none exist? The consensus today is that Einstein was wrong, but this consensus is tentative (as are all consensuses), and whether the quantum world truly has some indeterminate and random qualities is still actively researched in some quarters. The consensus may change, but whether it does or not (and returning to my original point), a consensus doesn't form because of confidence factors that an idea is true, because such confidence factors do not exist. Accepting an idea is a subjective and human phenomenon based upon experience, background, intuition and feel, just like your rejection of the Crick/Watson paper as an example of using math but not statistics.--Percy

Well Percy, I'm still satisfied to have shown that statistics are rather more widely used and more important than your original assessment.

I didn't have an original assessment. I didn't say anything about how much statistics are used. I'm just pretty sure that the number of papers using only non-statistical math is far greater than zero.Concerning my main point about how ideas become accepted, I tried to distinguish between the statistics used in generating research results (e.g., a precise measure of the age of the Earth) from the confidence factor in an idea that I was actually talking about (e.g., the Earth is ancient) and that I don't believe exists, but evidently failed.--Percy

And yet, if the confidence limits on the age of the Earth or the Universe were too large, those results would not be accepted as accurate. It's not true that statistics had nothing to do with their acceptance. The statistics don't tell the whole story, but they are an important part of it.It's how scientists handle errors in measurements. So if there is any uncertainty in a measurement, you can bet that statistics are involved to try to quantify it.

Yes, I guess that's about what I'm saying. Staying consistent with how you're expressing it, error bars or confidence factors aren't the whole story. For example, much of the work on MoND and dark matter (alternative theories that explain things like why rotating galaxies don't fly apart) is highly statistical, but those statistics don't help us form overall confidence factors for each theory that allow us to perform a simple mathematical comparison to decide which is correct. Consensuses don't form that way. I couldn't accept that any quantitative result will involve statistics (your Message 471), and this alternative expression is still a bit unpalatable. Does a measurement include simple counts? Anyway, if I understand what you're trying to say then I couldn't agree more that statistical approaches are very important to a great deal of research that lends itself to mathematical analysis, but I never said it wasn't, or even tried to express my opinion on the matter. Sorry if I gave a different impression by using the ages of the Earth and universe as examples.--Percy

I believe that such examples are hard to come by. Surely the consensus is what we are talking about. I thought you had acknowledged that confidence can be persuasive and were in the case of General Relativity. The question of whether or not statistics was used is not subjective, and the question of whether their findings were accepted without the use of statistics is not confined to the four corners of that paper which, in my opinion does not resolve the issue either way.And on the one hand to tell me to forget the paper and then concluding with this gem is laughable.

I'm just trying to address the issues you raised as best I can. Sorry this isn't working out. Nothing I said was meant to be personal. The reference to your rejection of the possibility that statistics really were absent in the Crick/Watson work was only intended to highlight the similarity with Einstein's rejection of quantum phenomena like spooky action at a distance and such. It wasn't meant as a taunt. Forming opinions based upon our internal sense rather than on evidence is a human thing, not a stupid thing. I do it too. We all do.--Percy