Genomicus writes:
Hey bluegenes, and welcome back.
Cheers.
Geno writes:
In this thread, I've contrasted exploratory science from properly constructed scientific hypotheses. So the notion of extrasolar planets does/did fit under the umbrella of exploratory science, but as this idea wasn't falsifiable, it could not be considered a properly constructed scientific hypothesis in the Popperian sense.
That it wasn't Popperian was my point. But it was, demonstrably, a damned good scientific induction.
Geno writes:
The broad idea of panspermia is not falsifiable precisely because it is a general idea and not a specific model; however, lithopanspermia is falsifiable (as I've argued here) and thus qualifies as a scientific hypothesis.
You mean "Popperian" hypothesis, or "properly constructed" as you put it. I might have been wrong about general panspermia being unfalsifiable. When initially proposed, it could have been falsified if it could have been demonstrated that no organism could possibly survive in space. As that doesn't appear to be the case, we could say that the general idea has passed a falsification test.
Geno writes:
Sure, but that would falsify virtually all non-teleological models for the origin of life on Earth, including panspermia -- for the simple reason that if the Earth was, say, frozen for the first 4 billion years, then there would be only 500 million years to get from prokaryotes to fully-fledged mammalian organisms.
So this falsification scenario falsifies the general premise of a non-teleological origin of life; however, it does not allow us to falsify specific abiogenesis models in a way that would be relevant only to those models.
Hypotheses don't become any less Popperian if possible falsifications also falsify other hypotheses. Think of your own chosen example from Ruse of "planets moving in squares". I don't know how many hypotheses that would falsify, but we could probably give the whole set an umbrella description like "cosmology"!
Geno writes:
Some of the objections have been confirmed, but I don't see any OoL researchers abandoning the RNA world in droves. The reason is simple: the RNA world model functions as a good framework for exploratory science; but this does not make it a properly constructed scientific hypothesis.
It's certainly Popperian. To add to the things I've already mentioned that would falsify it, future experimentation could establish that RNA is definitely too unstable to support even the simplest life forms on its own. Future experimentation could also confirm an alternative hypothesis beyond all reasonable doubt.
Genomicus writes:
Well, I'd hesitate to say that the standard YEC model is falsifiable, precisely because "Goddidit" can always be invoked when there's a seemingly insurmountable problem. That creationism has this magic card -- Goddidit -- means it's really not falsifiable and so never qualified as a properly constructed scientific hypothesis.
Not really, because their standard model is meant to be testable. The earth should appear 6,500 yrs. old and that should fit the data. That differs from other YEC models, particularly my favourite, the Omphalist version.
That's the perfect example of an untestable, unfalsifiable model, because any and all data will fit.
Geno writes:
Popperian falsification is IMHO a very good criterion to determine whether something is to be considered a scientific hypothesis; that exploratory science still goes on does not mean that Popperian falsificationism is a flawed concept.
The problem arises if someone implies that the hypothesis that the moon is made of cheese (Popperian) is inherently more scientific than the hypothesis that there are planets outside this solar system. The thing about the planets hypothesis is that the only reason it could be described as unfalsifiable is practical, unlike the Omphalist idea, which is untestable by its nature.
Geno writes:
The abiogenesis models for the origin of life are exploratory, and not hypotheses of the Popperian kind.
They're definitely falsifiable.
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