Re: Science is a matter of faith and trust. Hmmmmmm.

reany_at_asu.edu
Date: 02/03/05 

Date: 2 Feb 2005 21:02:07 -0800

AllYou! wrote:
> <reany@asu.edu> wrote in message
> news:1107372037.445026.141380@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > AllYou! wrote:
[snip]

> What did you mean by *it's 'validate'* in answer to the very fair
> question as how a theory gets to be an empirical theory?

Theories don't get to be "empirical" by passing some kind of
measurement test. They just are or are not according as they do or do
not make testable empirical predictions.

We validate theories to declare the results based on testing whether
they do or do not work (make good correspondence between predictions
and measurments).

>
> Also, you forgot to answer the rest. Here, I'll fix it for you:
>
> > > But I thought you just said that the theory *tells* us this. Now
> > you're backtracking and
> > > claim that it's all just a presumption? So your whole case
relies
> > upon nothing more than
> > > presumptions?

Theories declare explicitly or implicitly (by defaulting to convention)
what is being measured by any given measuring device. You either are OK
with it or you are not. Choose.

> >
> > Anything can TELL. Telling comes cheap.
>
> Then your whole position is cheap because this *telling* is one of
its cornerstones.

The rational mind has to make a value judgment whether or not a theory
gives anything useful.

>
> > If you have trust in a theory,
> > you probably have faith that the theory is correct in what it tells
us
> > about the behavior of the measuring instruments.
>
> Faith? Trust? Is that your idea of what the scientific method
should be all about?

The scientific method is a means of producing vetted knowledge in the
form of definitions, hypotheses, models, laws, conventions, and
theories in which we can have confidence (faith, yes, but certainly not
blind faith) that, taken all together, provide for us a nonunique means
of predicting events and "understanding" why they occur, given other
events.

>Why
> do we need a theory at all of it's just about trust?

Trust need not be "just trust." We have a rationale for believing in
the utility of the products of the scientific method. Why does trust
seem out of place in science to you?

>
> > There are no
> > guarentees as to truth, and theories do not have to explain HOW
> > measuring instruments work.
>
> There's a huge gap between *truth*, whatever that is, and blind
faith.

Where did I recommend "blind faith"?

> This huge gap in
> your position is easily filled if you were to accept my notion of
physicality instead of
> just going in circles until you come to blind faith.

I don't have to used blind faith when I use a model, such as the model
of a photon, point mass particle, or field. I require that those
artifacts only be used to build successful theories, not to reveal what
really exists and in what form. I do not think of theories as
reverse-engineering deep reality.

> You've abandoned our debate about
> whether or not sensations are just free inventions of the mind
because you now realize
> that they are not, and neither are observations, but you just can't
bring yourself to
> acknowledge it.

It really seems to interest you about sensations and free inventions,
but it has almost no interest to me. To me, what's important is how we
explain our preceived senses.

In any case, immediate sensations will likely be contorted by memory,
which, I believe, will attempt to conform memories into a form not
antagonizing previously held belief or theories or hypotheses. A Bias
lives on.

>
> > But in the case of the thermometer, the
> > theory of thermodynamics explains how they work to some degree and
> > kinetic theory does an even better job in some sense (not that
kinetic
> > theory is "true"). Notice that I've made a distinction between how
> > measuring instruments behave and how one explains why they behave
as
> > they do.
>
> Exactly my point. The credibility of the theory which relies upon a
given measuring
> instrument to match behavior with predictions is directly related to
the credibility of
> the theory which explains the operation of the measuring instrument.

Are you suggesting some means of establishing "credibility"
(believability) other than by how well the theory relates predictions
to measurements?

Just what is it you think we are supposed to believe about a theory of
physics?

Patrick

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