On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 11:19 AM, Gruss Gott <[email protected]> wrote: > > No, actually, it wasn't. It was an unknown, again, just like "dark matter". > Read Robert's response, his is the credited answer. >
It was for one hundred years. > But how about this analogy: air. > > We can see the effects air has, we can calculate air's effect on things, we > can "test" for it, we can try to theorize about air. So is air a theory? A > fact? No. Because there is no such substance as "air". It's simply a > placeholder for other substances. Nobody claimed air was an element on it's own but a combination of gasses. Nothing in common, very bad analogy again. > Now if we had a theory about HOW this substance acts given certain conditions > (let's say a fan at constant speed) in general, at a certain level of > granularity, that theory will always be fact. If someone had a theory about air and tested it, proved it existed and later discovered it was a combination of gasses than we could say the theory was not a fact but they were on to something. In other words you could prove way back that air existed, fact. Now we know that air is a combination of things. The fact that air exists still holds true. The theory of what comprises air has changed. Thus a good theory proven wrong that leads to the understanding of other things. Success. > Note the key difference! The second theory is about the motion OF air, not > "air". If, for example, you assume that "air" is everywhere and you can > always survive breathing "it" ... Well that experiment would fail. Thus air > is not a fact, just like phlogiston isn't. > > Phlogiston theory was about effects, not the substance itself. Just like air > is a place holder. > No, it was classified as an element and was tested and proven, after one hundred years of testing by the top scientists of the day it was proven not to exist and the actions were caused by something ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:342923 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
