Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 64 (9164 total)
5 online now:
Newest Member: ChatGPT
Post Volume: Total: 916,765 Year: 4,022/9,624 Month: 893/974 Week: 220/286 Day: 27/109 Hour: 0/3


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Testing Theories of Origins
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3667 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


(1)
Message 103 of 143 (694559)
03-25-2013 3:42 PM
Reply to: Message 80 by designtheorist
03-25-2013 9:05 AM


Re: Clarification
If a prediction is not related to the future, then it is not a prediction.
This is absolute nonsense - pure drivel! How many Hollywood films about 'the future' have you seen to believe that prediction is about things that are 'yet to happen'?
Meanwhile on planet Earth and the Scientific Method the word 'prediction' has a completely different meaning. It means, given a data set and a particular hypothesis you can predict the outcome - not in the future but here NOW. This is what is meant by 'prediction'.
To use the Theory of Evolution as a familiar well trodden example:
Descent by modification of existing species (the hypothesis) makes the following PREDICTIONS:
1.Organisms if descended from earlier organisms should be arranged in a 'nested hierarchy' (which is what we find)
2. Organisms should show clear signs of predecessor physiology - evolution has to build on what went before - no clean sheets - no wiping of the slate clean (again which is what we see)
Neither of the two examples above are predications about what WILL happen in the near future (on the contrary they predict what should have happened in the past based on what the hypothesis can allow)
But predictions within the scientific method should do much more than this. More importantly than what a hypothesis predicts WILL happen, is what it predicts CAN'T happen (falsifiability). This is crucial as there are far more things a theory can't do (given the fact there are billions of things that 'can happen' out there in this world) than what it can do.
For the ToE the following are examples of falsifying predictions:
1.No animals should appear in the fossil record earlier than the time it evolved (no rabbits in the Precambrian)
2. No features that appear in one specific line should suddenly 'jump' into another line (the 'correctly wired' eyes of cephalopods should not suddenly appear in the mammal line (incorrectly wired eyes).
Again, the two examples above of falsifiability have nothing to do with predicting future actions but checking out what is already there.
I think you have a serious misconception about the word "prediction". You seem to have linked it in an almost Pavlovian way to "what will happen in the future" and this is absolutely not the case at all.
In the scientific method all 'prediction' means is "does the hypothesis make general statements about what should and shouldn't happen if this hypothesis is correct?"
By the way: if you can't falsify a hypothesis then it is NFG (no fucking good). If a rocket engineer was asked what his rocket propulsion formula predicted and he said "You name it my formula does it" what he is actually saying is "it does nothing at all". An engineer (in common with scientists) need to be very specific about what something can and CANNOT do. And the 'cannot' part is even more important than the 'can' part.
A dead giveaway for unscientific proposals is the lack of an ability to properly falsify a hypothesis. If you try and find you can't falsify then you seriously haven't got a scientific proposal up for discussion....try this simple test - it will sieve out a lot of nonsense before you get to try it out here.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 80 by designtheorist, posted 03-25-2013 9:05 AM designtheorist has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 104 by Percy, posted 03-25-2013 3:55 PM Drosophilla has seen this message but not replied
 Message 110 by NoNukes, posted 03-25-2013 10:04 PM Drosophilla has seen this message but not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024