What is good science?

Almost, but not quite.The distinction is that creationists twist and modify the evidence to match their preconceived notion, where science will modify the hypothesis to match the new evidence.If a further examination of the age of the universe shows that previous calculations were off by a few million years, science would alter their theory of the age of the universe to reflect the new data.For a creationist, the evidence is really irrelevant - it's just another way to rationalize their preconceived conclusion. So additional evidence about the age of the Earth, the age of the universe, or anything else really, is either spun or ignored in support of the same old idea. It's not hard to draw the line. The line is simply the question of what is being modified - the hypothesis to match the observed evidence, or the evidence (or interpretation thereof) in support of the same static hypothesis? Changing the interpretation of evidence (without further evidence that the oprevious interpretation was wrong) to match the static hypothesis is the logical fallacy. Not so. Dark matter and dark energy are conclusions drawn from evidence. New evidence will modify science's understanding of dark energy and matter, or disprove the idea entirely. If scientists were guilty of defending the hypothesis, the descriptions of dark energy and matter would never change, and any new evidence would be twisted or ignored in support of the same old idea.

Right but they don't appear that way to the uninitiated novice. Not too long ago I was in the position of arguing exactly the point that Nosy Ned brought up. Despite my scientific background I had no idea what Dark Matter was. It looked to me like physics as we know it was predicting a certain mass for the universe then when they couldn't find it, they made something up to fill the space. If that were truly the case then it would be precisely "defending the hypothesis" in the face of falsifying evidence.

I see. I misunderstood. You're right - to someone who doesn't know more than Discovery Channel science, it would appear to be defending the hypothesis.This message has been edited by Rahvin, 07-25-2005 03:25 PM

Uhhh?? Rhavin. Were you planning to just fire my quote right back at me or did you want to add something?(I hate it when I accidentally hit the "Submit Reply" button when I just wanted a "preview" )(abe) I see a missing ABE up there. heheheThis message has been edited by PurpleYouko, 07-25-2005 03:29 PM

Were you thinking that dark matter was a theoretical prediction? If so, it still leaves me wondering how it appeared to be defending the hypothesis. What evidence did you think was being stretched or ignored, and what hypothesis did you think was being defended?The existence of dark matter (whether WIMPS or MACHOs we do not know) is deduced from observational data. The fact that the spiral arms of rotating galaxies don't fly off into intergalactic space means that more matter surrounds galaxies than we can detect electromagnetically. The only evidence for dark matter is gravitational, but it's very strong evidence, so strong that we're exploring modifications to theories of cosmological origins to account for it. Since we're modifying theory in the face of evidence, we're managing to avoid the mistake of defending the hypothesis.But I think the question you and Nosy and a couple others have raised is a good one, because the mistake of defending the hypothesis *does* happen in legitimate science. The most famous example I'm aware of is Eugene Wegener. His evidence of matching fossils and geography for widely separated regions (the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa, for example) caused mainstream geology to defend the hypothesis of static continents and propose land bridges (which account for the fossils but not the geology, but of course we don't know the full informational context in which they considered the issue). There was, of course, no evidence of land bridges.One lesson of such errors is that the errors are usually not apparent when you're making them, but only in retrospect.--Percy

It's worth pointing out that in Lakatos' view of science this is defensible so long as progress is being made. It is even acceptable to give more leeway to immature theories. And on the whole I think that this is correct. If a new theory solved serious problems with the current mainstream view - or if there is no well-established view and there are strong grounds for thinking that the new theory could be productive - then it should be given an opportunity to work out the potential problems.However, in the case of CPT there are no observations which it explains better than conventional theory. Indeed, it would be more accurate to state that CPT is another attempt at assembling a "protective belt" of auxiliary hypotheses around the assumption of a Young Earth. As such CPT doesn't deserve to be given any special consideration. There is already a well-established theory that is better than CPT and no reason to beleive that CPT will make any useful contribution to our understanding of geology.

It would be nice if there was some way to "judge" relative progress in science more or less objectively. I used to use Science Citation Index to gauge the relative usefulness of a particular explanation but you mean something different by "progress". It is clear however that progress to one could be egress to another before the ingress is digressed to a fuller conclusion.It seems to me that the term "good science" has been used by Creationists for decades but now the the Bush environmental progressive (RE)writers are faciliting a shift that is not what I would have like to see in the progress of best science. I say that thinking about "nuclear winter" as "progress" but i cant see it as incrementally but instead as disjunct as SJ GOULD suggested that it was something "new" not thought of. That is why I cant see how "progressivity" can be consensized? thoughts??

Remember we are talking about the layman here. Somebody who at best has watched discovery channel a few times.
Heck, I already had a Chemistry degree and had studied physics to an undergrad level and I really had absolutely no idea what dark matter was.
The only thing I really knew was that scientists had predicted a certain mass for the universe and then failed to find it.
(I still don't really understand what they did to actually predict the total mass of the universe so I'm not surprized that others don't)Anyway, from the view of the layman it goes like this..
1) Some theory makes a prediction of a specific mass for the universe.
2) That prediction is not born out by observations.
3) Instead of abandoning that theory they invent some invisible, intangable, ghost material that nobody has ever seen, to fill up the missing mass.Frankly the math that makes these predictions is a complete mystery to me and very probably goes right over my head. (I'm crap at higher math) You see I didn't even know that until right now when you pointed it out. How many others don't either? I don't doubt it. Trouble is that you really need to give a complete novice a pretty advanced lesson in Physics before they can understand this point. To the complete layman this is just the same as invoking ghosts or the god-of-the-gaps.
Then there are those who don't even want to understand.

I think one problem is that many people equate Knowledge with Certainty when in fact, atleast since Gauss, we have come to understand that Knowledge must include Uncertainty.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

In Message 4 Crashfrog makes perhaps the most important point relevant to this discussion, that scientists don't philosophize about science, they carry out experiments, analyze data and write papers. The philosphy of science is its own field, and for the most part other scientists stay out of it. No practicing scientist would ever argue for his theory as Chris does here in this thread. He would instead advance arguments for his theory supported by evidence, (or data, if some prefer).Theories do not become accepted because of technical philosophical arguments or through logical analysis of the key assertions. Theories become accepted because of their explanatory power, of their usefulness, which in turn causes more and more scientists to accept them.Chris argues that he is doing good science because his theory, CPT, fulfills his view of the technical requirements of not being falsified. But positive evidence is also required, and anyway, falsification is not a process of formal logic analysis. For CPT, falsification happens when it convinces no other scientists because they find it stupid, ill-considered and impossible. Scientists don't draw logic diagrams to explain why they don't accept an idea. They just say, "You haven't convinced me." And if someone like Chris starts drawing logic diagrams on a napkin to show why their theory must be accepted, most scientists will do what I in effect did here: ignore it because it's irrelevant.Find the evidence, Chris.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

quote:

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Evidence is an observation that "fits" or "supports" a specific theory.

Would an obsevation that does not fit a theory, in fact might falsify the theory, be evidence?

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I would say that in some sense observations aren't evidence. They become evidence when you compare them to predictions made using the theory - if they "fit" they become evidence for the theory and if they don't they become evidence against it.Of course you could argue that is taking pedantism to new highs (or lows) I've not been able to spend much time here lately so I've just read the six pages of this thread in one go - so my brain is fogging a bit - but it seems to me (as many of you guys have been pointing out) that this is all a side show to the issue that Chris never seemed to want to address, namely the need for a new theory to make new predictions and/or solve problems that the currently prevailing views can't.

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Oops! Wrong Planet

Okay, so observations that support a theory are evidence and observations that do falsify a theory are evidence.If an observation neither confirms or falsifies a theory it would be? But you're right. Chris has never addressed the question "What would a world where CPT happened look like?"

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

TC, I am not sure whether you are claiming this or saying it is flawed but the following logical statement:if H then TI
TI
therefore H is confirmedis not correct. In an If/then statement, the premise (H) is not confirmed when the result (TI) is true. All that can be said about the premise is that it is not rejected. For example:If I get up by 7 am, I will eat breakfast before going to work.
This morning I ate breakfast before going to work. Does it follow that I got up by 7 am? No it does not. I may have gotten up by 7 am and eaten breakfast or I may have gotten up at 7:15 and still eaten breakfast and was late for work.There is no need to invoke auxiliary hypotheses to show the logical flaw in claiming the confirmation of the premise when the result is true.OTOH
If and only if H, then TI
TI
H is confirmedIf and only if I get up by 7 am, I will eat breakfast.
I ate breakfast.
I must have been up by 7 am.edited grammerThis message has been edited by deerbreh, 07-28-2005 10:48 AM