I don’t, unless you can convince me (which you probably can, but hey).
Science relies on real experiments to falsify hypotheses, PG. I can no more experimentally falsify the statement “1+1=2” than I can the statement “I like this painting” or “God exists”.
Of course I can’t falsify “1+1=2”, it’s true.
Yes, this is what I was thinking. And we all know what happened to him.
I didn’t want to do a flameout like that; I like this board too much. And I don’t think I was getting close to that level. But what really made me decide to avoid this topic set altogether are posters saying they can’t believe I haven’t been banned yet, that I should be banned, that I have no integrity, etc.
Bizarre. That’s not me, and I prefer not to view myself in a funhouse mirror. If certain proponents of the “other side” are going to play that way, then not only is the debate not enjoyable, I think they have a pretty good chance in the end of either politicking for a banning or bringing me down to that level so that I actually deserve it. Insofar as I’ve gotten nasty in the Pit over these issues, that’s not a breach of the board rules but it’s a violation of my own principles. Campaigning to have someone banned who by any standard just “isn’t all that bad,” however, is an issue that’s beyond my control. Except to avoid them altogether.
Well, you know, the Bible is the word of God because it says it is.
Except that by any reasonable standard, you could never be deemed “not all that bad”. Or don’t you remember “pulling the string of Chucky the Skeptic”? Don’t you remember the battle between lekatt and the “Panties-in-a-wad-ers”? Don’t you remember your own phony conversion to skepticism? Don’t you remember claiming to have cites (in Great Debates), but refusing to show them because you “weren’t here to debate”?
Face it, Aeschines, you’ve been an asshole. I’m not saying I haven’t been, I probably have, but I’m not the one whining about how everyone hates me even though I’m a swell guy.
Besides the point. I cannot falsify “1+1=2” since it’s true, but I can prove it, since it’s true. I can falsify “1+1=3” since it’s false, but I can’t prove it, since it’s false. SentientMeat seems to be saying that if I can’t falsify Relativity, it can’t be true.
No no no, that’s not what he means. He means falsification in the Popperian sense. To falsify an hypothesis is to test its risk. An hypothesis must be falsifiable to qualify as scientific.
Uh oh. This is turning into one of those threads.
Lib, you know I understand where you’re coming from, and in a purely philosophical sense, I agree with you.
But speaking solely for myself, I do have a problem with those of a non-empirical bent who attempt to establish their beliefs within an empirical context. That is to say, I have no problem with any sort of non-scientific beliefs until a proponent claims those beliefs are valid in a scientific/empirical context. Belief in a 6-day creation, for example, is fine by me–but don’t try to claim it’s scientifically valid. It’s unnecessary and foolish.
That’s my only hangup here.
(As an aside, my brother the Methodist minister asked me a few years back if I could explain the Darwin fish/Truth fish car sticker fad. I told him is was a result of a bunch of rationalists thinking that belief was a threat, and a bunch of believers thinking that rationalism was a threat, and that they were all making the stupid mistake of thinking they had to play in each others’ ballfields. He said he figure it had to be something as silly as that.)
Just doing my part. 
Ah, he didn’t mean “actually falsify”, he basically meant “be theoretically able to falsify”. Well then, I’m sticking to my guns. Provided we agree on the definitions of “1”, “+”, “=” and “2”, anyone can test that hypothesis using common household ingredients. Pick anything to use for “units” and go from there.
By the way, Liberal, regarding Aeschines: If he had simply said “I believe in remote viewing/psi/ghosts/whatever”, then fine. But he didn’t. He said that his beliefs had been empirically shown in the lab by scientists. He said that successful experiments had been carried out. When he says that, he makes empirical statements, and I think it’s perfectly reasonably to ask him to back up empirical statements with empirical data. He refused, preferring to play games and insult other debaters.
I agree completely. That’s why I told Aeschines that if he made an epistemic claim, then vigilant posters like Sentient would rightly demand epistemological support. But science hardly needs another voice to defend it here. People who don’t even know what it is defend it left and right. I am as concerned about the scientist who demands empirical evidence that God exists as I am about the fundamentalist who demands Biblical evidence for evolution. It’s really very simple: metaphysical claims demand deductive proof; epistemic claims demand inductive proof; observational claims demand empirical proof; and so on. A man who thinks he can prove by experiment that 1+1=2 is true is as clueless as the man who thinks he can prove by Bible verses that the world was created in six days. They are, to me, equally exasperating.
Then show me why.
Yes, you can test it, but you cannot prove it to be true. After you’ve tested it a million times, you have not established that it will work again the million-and-first time. Only a deductive proof will establish once and for all that 1 + 1 = 2 because it is a metaphysical claim. If you read the link I gave you to Popper, you’ll see that science cannot prove anything true — it only proves things false. That’s why it is called “falsification”. That’s why science is malleable. That’s why Einstein’s theories can augment or supplant Newton’s. Science is valid only for empirical claims, and even then it must use caution because what appears to be an empirical claim might be an epistemic one. Modern philosophers of science understand this, and it is the basis of modern Theory of Experiments (a field in statistics). Consider, for example, the man who conducted a three-day experiment. On the first day, he mixed water and whiskey and got drunk. On the second day, he mixed water and vodka and got drunk. On the third day, he mixed water and rum and got drunk. His conclusion was that since water was the common element each time, it was water that made him drunk. His error was epistemic in nature despite his careful observation.
Yes, Priceguy, I’ve been imperfect. Most or all of what you cite above are my oldest posts, when I was still getting used to the rhythm of the board. Even those, however, were done in the spirit of Puckish fun, and usually when I was greatly outnumbered, if not battling quite by myself. Hardly what I’d call “asshole” territory, which to me implies I’m really being nasty and mean to people.
Of course, I’ve failed in that regard too now and then. At any rate, why don’t we just let bygones be bygones and be friendly? I’m not interested in battles any more.
I already did. In post #38.
Only in the sense that I can’t empirically prove anything to be true, only show that it’s extremely likely that something is true, which means that “1+1=2” is as falsifiable as any other hypothesis.
If we’ve misunderstood each other, and you are in fact not saying that “1+1=2” is fundamentally different from “Relativity is true” or “evolution happened” or whatever, then I apologize for the misunderstanding and will be on my merry way. If you are saying that, please explain.
Feh. I already knew you were going to post this.