Induction and Science

Hi, nwr. I don't see how this could be anything but a semantic argument.Straggler used the phrase, "consistency of natural laws."In this, I think he was being somewhat redundant: surely it's the consistency of a given natural phenomenon that makes him decide to call it a "law," right? This is the connotation of the phrase "natural law," after all.So, why are you arguing that there are no "natural laws"?Are you arguing that there are actually no natural phenomena that are consistent enough to be considered "laws"? I'd have to disagree with you on that: gravity is a great example of a phenomenon that is consistent enough to merit the designation of "law."So, now I ask, if I can persuade Straggler to reword his statement thus---

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The entirety of science and it's ability to predict is based on the consistency of natural phenomena."

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---would anything substantive about his argument be changed?I don't see how it could.So, either you are objecting to word choice, or you are arguing that no natural phenomena show the consistency that Straggler was claiming.I don't see how either one of these options is a particularly good argument.Edited by Bluejay, : It's patently stupid to use a subtitle that is identical to the thread title. Moose would have a fit.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, nwr. The "natural law" of gravity is the natural phenomenon that these three "scientific laws" of gravity were attempting to explain.----- Why not? Some phenomenon are random. Incidence of mutations during replication would be a phenomenon that could be considered inconsistent.----- I think the conclusion to be drawn here is that the people you refer to are using inductive reasoning to argue that "scientific laws" are part of nature. Although I'm a relative novice in the scientific community, I can state with a fairly high degree of confidence that this is an integral part of the Discussion section of typical scientific papers.Edited by Bluejay, : grammar

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, nwr. True. That mutations happen is a consistent feature of replication that can be demonstrated by observation. However, I was trying to refer to the pattern of occurrence, i.e. predicting where and when a given type of mutation will occur.I would argue that the lack of such predictive capacity is independent of the level of scientific development, i.e. a part of nature.----- I agree that Straggler always wants to be in the driver's seat, and is a bit of a bully about it, but I don't see why you think they're twisting the discussion and/or going off-topic. He's not going to deal with pure rationalism, and he doesn't do "defensive" posts, but he's still not really off-topic: he's just trying to force you to see the problem from his perspective.----- I agree. Still, we do keep proposing that our "scientific laws" and theories are a part of nature, and that they can be applied, so I still think the "inductive reasoning" shoe fits.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, nwr. I don't like this for two reasons:

1. I don't see how it's meaningful to separate "science" from "what scientists do" (unless, of course, "what scientists do" is unrelated to their professional life, e.g., watching a movie or learning to polka or something).
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2. In order to say that science doesn't make predictions, you would have to show that the predictions that scientists do make aren't an integral part of making the final product. And, I don't think you can actually do that.

Certainly, I agree that, in ecology, there is a lot of "observational" work, where we start collecting data and try to see what we can make of it; but, in ethology (behavior), for instance, we have to design our experiments based entirely on testing a prediction that we make before we design the experiment.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, nwr. So, you're arguing that even a random natural phenomenon could be considered a "consistent" phenomenon? The "Law of Random Mutations," if you will?I guess you could do that. But, that's not what I was thinking of.You and I are looking at this on a different scale of analysis. Picture a specific misrepair mutation, rather than a broad trend of mutations across many organisms. If we have a random chain of 100 base-pairs, can we predict which one(s) will mutate? Can we predict when?Any predictions we make will be relatively inaccurate. And, repeated observations are unlikely to noticeably improve our accuracy, because the incidence of a certain mutation is unlikely to be consistent.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Nwr. So, when you objected to Straggler's statement---

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Science does make predictions yes?

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---was it just the anthropomorphism that bothered you?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.But, if, when you say, "...those predictions should be considered predictions of science..." you mean, "...should those predictions be considered to have conformed to the methodological standards of scientific reasoning..." then, yes, I suppose they should be. However, there is a string of if's attached to that: ...then, yes, it should be considered science.However, given that most scientists argue that at least one of the above conditions is violated in the process of doing ID "science," we generally do not consider ID-based predictions to be scientific.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Nwr. But, I don't think Straggler was saying this: I think he was using anthropomorphic language to say, "The scientific method requires one to make predictions."

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.