Arlo Barnes wrote at 04/12/2013 11:21 AM: > I thought the tautology is that scientists are trying to converge on > Truth, but Truth is defined as what scientists converge on.
I don't think that's (technically) tautology. I've understood that as "begging the question" or assuming your conclusion. It's related to tautology, but weaker, allowing other stuff to participate in the inference process. Tautology is straight equality. Petitio principii can have side effects and other conclusions, of which only one conclusion is equivalent to one assumption. > I would break the cycle by arguing that scientists are not trying to > converge on anything, at least not if they are doing it right. They > would expect that minus experimental error and statistical variation the > results of their experiments would reflect some single coherent model of > reality, even one that we currently have no conception of, but they are > not supposed to and possibly can't assume such. Agreed! ... not if they're doing it right. The trick is how do we know who's doing it right? -- =><= glen e. p. ropella Cause every supersonic jerkoff who plugs into the game ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
