Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science

From: Albert Wagner (albertwagner_at_cox.net)
Date: 03/15/05 

Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 09:15:19 -0600

robert j. kolker wrote:
>
> Albert Wagner wrote:
>
>> Nice sidestep, but ineffective. Predictability and empirical
>> correctness are /not/ synonymous. One big clue is undead cats.
>
> Bull***. Quantum theory makes definite predictions, predictions that
> are testable.

When have I ever disagreed with that very limited observation?

> Once an observation is made the wave function collapses
> and a definite result is in hand.

A definite result is /always/ at hand after an observation.
Abstract wave functions /always/ collapse when the mathematics
says they should.

> On that basis quantum electrodynamics
> is the most accurate physical theory ever formulated.

No. The Neanderthal's cause-and-effect theory is the most
accurate in real terms.

> Correct prediction is the figure of merit for an internally consistent
> theory.

*** internal consistency. Internal consistency is a
mathematical criteria with no guaranteed relationship to anything
in the world. What about external consistency?

> Breadth of prediction is an added plus.

If so, then a theory that predicts everything imaginable is the
best. See where such logic gets you? -- another undead cat.

> The more kinds of things
> a theory predicts correctly, the better it is.

No. That's simply instrumentalism. QM predicts only what it's
designed to predict and nothing more. The predictions must be
about the world, not mathematical confirmation of a 'properly'
designed experiment.

> You would like to believe that only deterministic theories can be
> correct.

And you, who deny ghosts and spirits, delight in your beliefs in
the abstractions of energies, waves and forces.

> You are quite wrong in this.

So you say, but cannot prove. 

-- 
"I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based
on the field concept, i. e., on continuous structures. In that
case nothing remains of my entire castle in the air,
gravitation theory included, [and of] the rest of modern physics."
	-- Albert Einstein in a 1954 letter to Michele Besso.
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