--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. Almeida" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >You are right, many of my statements are false: probably because I >am merely human. I must say, in fairness, that your statements are >NOT invariably false. If I take a little light-hearted tone in the >following text it is not because I lack the deepest respect for your >talents. >
Dear Joel: Thanks for your delightful post. I don't want to refute specifically any of your comments because I don't find anything in them that challenges the view that mainstream science has proceeded mainly by induction and confirmation, and only in a trivial sense by falsification. I have read a couple of Karl Popper's books, "The Self and Its Brain", and "Knowledge and the Body- Mind Problem", in which he discusses falsification, among many other things. His ideas, as far as the mind-body problem is concerned, failed to impress me. Perhaps my mind is not dense enough to appreciate them. But I would go out on a limb and say that very few people with a head centrally placed on their shoulders would accept the Popperian idea that there are three worlds, as anything other than eccentric. I must admit, however, that despite my reservations about Popper's other views, for a while I too was convinced that falsification was an important precept of the scientific discovery process. But over time my simple-mindedness proved to be a limitation in this respect as well. I could not think past the realization that every instance of falsification of a hypothesis is simultaneously an instance of confirmation of the opposite hypothesis. This lowly notion persuaded me not to regard Popper's contribution any more charitably than calling it a trivial advancement in thinking. To use your analogy, finding a white swan is indeed a falsification of the hypothesis that swans are black. But how can I deny that it can also be regarded as a confirmation of the hypothesis that swans are white? No amount of Nobel laureate name-dropping will convince me that it is not. To my simple Goan mind, the distinction between the usage of the term "falsification" instead of "confirmation" in science is as trivial as the distinction between "right" and "not wrong". No matter how many "induction turkeys" are sacrificed in its name, it will always remain the banal dichotomy that it appears to be to light-headed guys like me who are frequent targets of light-hearted comments. As a scientist interested in bread and butter science, I would much rather be inclined to accept the mundane scientific approach exemplified by NASA researchers who are looking for "confirmatory" signs for water on Mars. They are not trying to falsify the hypothesis that there is no water on Mars. But they might have had to do that if the Popperian species of humans were not so endangered, and one of these heady creatures were sitting on their funding review committee. What it would practically amount to, is to merely rephrase a sentence stating the exact opposite of their original hypothesis. And I have to tell you, ordinary scientists - those who float in the moat around ivory towers, would much rather spend their time gathering trivial confirmatory facts, than awkwardly constructing trivial sentences conjugating the verb "falsify", merely to satisfy some Popperian ego. Cheers, Santosh P.S. Martin Gardner's literary and intellectual acumen and contributions can match any Nobel laureate's any day. Two whole generations of Scientific American readers (many of whom became Nobel laureates) grew up reading his brilliant column entitled "Mathematical Recreations" in this wonderful magazine. His belief in God is based on faith - not scientific evidence, and that's a good thing. Skeptical Inquirer is a solid journal that attempts to apply critical inquiry to all ideas and observations. You should read it. It even has some Nobel laureates on its editorial board. A few might even be believers or non-believers in God based on faith. I don't know if any of them hold those beliefs based on scientific evidence. But even if they don't, what the heck, nobody is perfect. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet =================================================================== For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
