Induction and Science

LOL. Is there anything in there worth responding to?Jon

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Check out Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

Not sure if I ever made that assertion. Not sure if I ever made a claim on how I believe scientific investigations get started. Not sure. But last I checked I wasn't nwr.Jon

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Check out Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

How is an axiom "derived from nothing" of the sort you have been advocating all thread different to a blind random guess? So (according to you) all conclusions are the result of deductions from what are effectively blind random guesses. Then what does your axiomatic nonsense have to do with the topic at hand? Anyway I thought your assertions applied to "All conclusions"? So you inductively conclude that you are still not? I think you should check again. If you can fit it in around your busy schedule as you eternally investigate every potential perpetual motion machine conceivable.It must be fun being you.

Perhaps when you can show why it matters, then the issue can be addressed. Sorry, but that doesn't follow from the quotes pasted. Plenty. How does this address anything?Jon

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Check out Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

How is an axiom "derived from nothing" of the sort you have been advocating all thread different to a blind random guess? If your deduced conclusions are derived from "axioms" which are functionally equivalent to blind random guesses then why would your conclusions (no matter how logically valid) be superior to blind random guesses? I could say that to your entire last post.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Does it matter? Have I ever made such a claim?Jon

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Check out Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

The fact that you are incapable of recognising the logical consequences of your own position is neither here nor there.I put it to you that the conclusions deduced from "axioms" which are "derived from nothing" are functionally equivalent to blind random guesses. How could it be otherwise? If conclusions are no more reliable or accurate than blind random guesses then yes it matters. Fortunately most of us have recognised the need for better methods.

No. Or, as people sometimes express it, shit happens.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

Just seen this:

If I put a piece of potassium in a glass of water what does science tell us will happen? Yet science does do this.Your non-inductive description of science spectacularly fails to deal with the indisputable fact that science as practised by real scientists makes inductive conclusions about the way nature will behave in specific as yet unobserved circumstances.Until you can describe science in a way that does not necessitate such conclusions as being "guesses" or "opinions" you remain entirely refuted on this very crucial point regarding the inductive nature of science.

I don't think I have suggested that. Rather, I have said that what you claimed to be true by definition, isn't. Are you denying that the Pythagorus result holds for ordinary physical triangles?

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

Pythagoras theorem is a general theorem that appies to ALL right angle triangles. The proof of Pythagoras theorem proves that Pythagoras theorem applies to ALL right angle triangles. "Physical triangles" - Will have imperfect right angles. So yes Pythagoras theorem will apply but imperfectly.It holds for ALL right angle triangles. That is what Pythagoras theorem states. That is what has been deductively proven.What is your point? That a general mathematical conjecture has been proved to apply in all cases? What has this got to do with induction and science?

I'm not sure what's your point here. Any prediction is about the unknown.Induction is supposedly the deriving of a general statement from specific statements. A prediction is not a general statement.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

You cannot make scientific predictions (or conclusions pertaining to future events) without first inductively concluding that nature will continue to operate as it has been observed to behave thus far.Can science tell us what effect dehydration would have on your body? Yes it can. But not without inductive reasoning being innately required.

The "conclusion" sometimes turns out to be wrong, showing that the "accurately" requirement is not met. It is clearly not indisputable. It has been disputed.Back in Message 509 you implied that I am anti-Popper, which I am not. You also implied that I am postmodern, which I am not. You seem to be jumping to conclusions not based on evidence.Here's a quote from the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on Popper

quote:

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Popper is unusual amongst contemporary philosophers in that he accepts the validity of the Humean critique of induction, and indeed, goes beyond it in arguing that induction is never actually used by the scientist. However, he does not concede that this entails the scepticism which is associated with Hume, and argues that the Baconian/Newtonian insistence on the primacy of ‘pure’ observation, as the initial step in the formation of theories, is completely misguided: all observation is selective and theory-ladenthere are no pure or theory-free observations. In this way he destabilises the traditional view that science can be distinguished from non-science on the basis of its inductive methodology; in contradistinction to this, Popper holds that there is no unique methodology specific to science.

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It seems that I am in agreement with a lot of what Popper says.If there is good evidence that induction is actually used by science, then there should be a peer reviewed scholarly article that thoroughly refutes Popper. Perhaps you can provide a citation.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie