Re: Misrepresentation of Popper
- From: "John Edser" <edser@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 14:05:43 -0400 (EDT)
ekurtz99@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:-
> > JM:-
> > The salient feature of Popper's epistemology is in the
> > curious way he treats the asymmetry between confirming
> > and refuting evidence for a theory. In contrast to most
> > philosophers before him, he attaches little value to
> > positive, confirming evidence. What he sees as adding
> > verisimilitude to a hypothesis or theory is the combination
> > of the absense of refuting evidence plus the apparent
> > openness of the theory to being refuted.
> EK:-
> Actually, Popper at one point in his career devised a method of
> quanitifying "verisimilitude" based on the relationship between the
> number of true and false assertions that a theory generates.
> QUOTE:
> ...verisimilitude is defined by assigning quantities to contents,
where
> the index of the content of a given theory is its logical
improbability
> (given again that content and probability vary inversely). Formally,
> then, Popper defines the quantitative verisimilitude which a statement
> 'a' possesses by means of a formula:
>
> Vs(a)=CtT(a) - CtF(a),
>
> where Vs(a) represents the verisimilitude of 'a', CtT(a) is a measure
of
> the truth-content of 'a', and CtF(a) is a measure of its
falsity-content.
> END QUOTE
> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/
> He later abandoned the method, but held to the belief that
> "verisimilitude" was meaningful, and could be assessed in a rational
way
> as a useful heuristic for a given theory.
JE:-
Popper (unlike gene centric Neo Darwinists) separated heuristics from
theory. What continues to amaze me is the bald faced acknowledgement by
the Neo Darwinists that post here that they do *NOT* separate them.
Again, Hamilton's Rule remains the classic example. The fitness rb is
just a 100% Hamiltonian group selective heuristic that is compared to c,
a non heuristic Darwinian individual fitness. If you compare a heuristic
with a testable reality then you have been proven NOT to separate
them...
> > JM:-
> > The first concern
> > of the theorist, according to Popper, is to make sure that
> > the theory is open to refutation. Then try honestly to
> > refute it. If you fail (repeatedly) then perhaps you may
> > begin to tentatively believe in it.
> EK:-
> The (IMO damning) objection to this is that it bears no relation to
way
> in which science is actually (and necessarily) done; the following,
> from the above reference, though a bit long, makes this point with
great
> clarity:
> QUOTE:
> ...Lakatos flatly denies that there are critical tests,
> in the Popperian sense, in science, and argues the point convincingly
by
> turning the above example of an alleged critical test on its head.
What,
> he asks, would have happened if Galle had not found the planet
Neptune?
> Would Newtonian physics have been abandoned, or would Newton's theory
> have been falsified? The answer is clearly not, for Galle's failure
> could have been attributed to any number of causes other than the
> falsity of Newtonian physics (e.g. the interference of the earth's
> atmosphere with the telescope, the existence of an asteroid belt which
> hides the new planet from the earth, etc).
JE:-
The above was not a test to refutation, just a test to non verification.
A refutation is any deductive inference from the theory that remains
excluded
e.g. if Galle had found two planets the size of Neptune in the same
orbit.
> Quote:
> The point here is that the
> 'falsification/corroboration' disjunction offered by Popper is far too
> logically neat: non-corroboration is not necessarily falsification,
and
> falsification of a high-level scientific theory is never brought about
> by an isolated observation or set of observations.
JE:-
Many cannot separate a falsification from a non verification. They
remain _entirely_ different events. Non verification is never definitive
because many reasons exist as to why an event was not documented.
However if a prohibited event becomes documented this remains entirely
definitive because it only leaves just ONE conclusion: the theory was
falsified.
> Quote:-
> Such theories are, it
> is now generally accepted, highly resistant to falsification. They are
> falsified, if at all, Lakatos argues, not by Popperian critical tests,
> but rather within the elaborate context of the research programmes
> associated with them gradually grinding to a halt, with the result
that
> an ever-widening gap opens up between the facts to be explained, and
the
> research programmes themselves. (Lakatos, I. The Methodology of
> Scientific Research Programmes, passim).
JE:-
Trying yo refute a theory with non verification is like moving to the
other side of a room by always moving backwards until you move around
the entire world and finally end up on the other side of the room, i.e.
it is the HARDEST possible way to get this job done. Refutation is the
opposite vector: just walk across the room. If you can conclude that
event x is prohibited as a deduction from that theory, i.e. the event is
logically associated with the theory but is not a _rational_ prediction
of it e.g. time cannot progress backwards, if verified in nature it
refutes the proposition. This removes the eternal problem of induction.
No longer do you have to observe EVERY rising of the sun to be able to
validly conclude that the sun actually rises. All you have to do now is
ASSUME the sun rises until a refutation of it is observed. This
refutation is not that the sun does not rise which only constitutes a
non verification, it is the proposition that the sun continues to set
without ever rising anywhere else (which is _not_ the same event).
> Quote:
> Popper's distinction between
> the logic of falsifiability and its applied methodology does not in
the
> end do full justice to the fact that all high-level theories grow and
> live despite the existence of anomalies (i.e. events/phenomena which
are
> incompatible with the theories). The existence of such anomalies is
not
> usually taken by the working scientist as an indication that the
theory
> in question is false; on the contrary, he will usually, and
necessarily,
> assume that the auxiliary hypotheses which are associated with the
> theory can be modified to incorporate, and explain, existing
anomalies.
> END QUOTE
JE:-
Any anomaly has to be proven. This includes the verification of an
excluded event. Any observational mechanism can become contentious. The
MM experiment refuted Newton's assumption that light waves were
supported by an aether.
The MM observation had to be repeated and modified many times before c
as a universal constant was actually verified. In the same way the left
over radiation from the big bang was verified using equipment that may
have been contaminated from other sources where this verification
refuted the steady state theory only leaving the big bang. A refutation
is always an empirical event so it has to be verified within nature.
> EK:-
> Kuhn, IIRC, makes the same point, except that, in place of "grinding
to
> a halt", he talks about the accumulating embarassment of a failing
> paradigm, and makes the point that the old paradigm will be abandoned
> only when a new one is availble, no matter how great has become the
> "measure of its falsity-content".
'
JE:-
I would suggest that poor science is based on the "long way around"
habit of not formulating any valid prohibited events for a particular
theory. This formulation process is very hard work requiring money, time
and expertise. In reality nobody funds work on the production of
refutable events for their own theory except the competition :-) If no
competition exists it does not get done. Within any monopoly we all
have to wait until non verification of predicted events makes everybody
bone weary ..
> EK:-
> Interesting historical note: astronomers tried to do for the orbit of
> Mercury what they had successfully done for that of Uranus: explain
the
> anomaly by positing the existence of a perturbing extra planet; they
> even had a name for it - Vulcan. No, I'm not kidding:
> http://www.answers.com/topic/vulcan-planet
JE:-
So, speaking as a non emotional Vulcan who remains strictly rational
what do you now conclude re: this non observation?
Regards,
John Edser
Independent Researcher
Po Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105
Australia
edser@xxxxxxxxxx
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