On Dec 28, 8:29 am, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: >Actually we've used theories that were elegant and predictive but we didn't >understand for a long time - it's called engineering. > Brent
Yes indeed! Remember my thread challenging Bayesian Induction as the basis for science? This is strong real-world evidence that Bayesian Induction is limited , look at what they say: --- An ongoing challenge is the tendency of Eureqa to return equations that fit data, but refer to variables that are not yet understood. Lipson likened this to what would happen if time-traveling scientists presented the laws of energy conservation to medieval mathematicians. “Algebra was known. You could plug in the variable, and it would work. But the concept of energy wasn’t there. They didn’t have the vocabulary to understand it,” he said. “We’ve seen this in the lab. Eureqa finds a new relationship. It’s predictive, it’s elegant, it has to be true. But we have no idea what it means.” --- Even perfect prediction is not science. I've downloaded the app and it performs poweful general purpose regression (fitting any spread- sheet data to equations). This is exactly what an ideal Bayesian reasoner does (devises equations making predictions). But let me empasize the last thing they said again: "It’s predictive, it’s elegant, it has to be true. But we have no idea what it means." Mere prediction (Bayesian Induction) alone is not science. Without a set of concepts with a clear meaning, mere prediction is no better than a black box outputting correct outcomes. Real science also requires Categorization (explanations based on concepts) not just prediction. Beware of cranks on other blogs and mailing lists claiming that Bayesian Induction is the foundation of science! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
