Re: What's the Science of Dinosaurs?

[philidor11@snet.net]

I observed:
<Interesting that in a discussion including quantum theory, with 
its uncertainty principle, that 'science is about what can be 
observed and measured'.>
to which you responded:
<The uncertainty principle describes how much can and can't be 
measured. Fits perfectly.>
Well, if the subject matter cannot be observed and measured (without 
changing it), quantum mechanics is not science.  The ideas are 
pretty weird.

You also observed:
<IMHO positivists have one big disadvantage (if I understand 
correctly what positivism is in the first place): They care about 
what they can observe now, not what may or may not be observable 
in the future.>
Sounds like the ultimate scientific principle is Wait for the 
Paper.

Taking a more detailed look at Positivism:
The distinction between observational and theoretical terms depends 
on the verifiability principle. A statement is meaningful only 
if it is verifiable; but, in scientific theories, there are many 
statements which are not verifiable -- for example, assertions 
dealing with quantum particles or relativistic gravitational 
fields. These statements are too abstract for a direct test; 
strictly speaking, they are meaningless. To avoid such a consequence, 
two different approaches were proposed...
From:
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/l/logpos.htm

Our old friend Popper found a resolution to the problem:
<While the analysis of relationships between the two kinds of 
terms [observation/inference, to over-simplify] began the object 
of many logical and philosophical studies, the distinction itself 
was criticized. According to Popper all scientific concepts are 
theoretical, for every assertion not only entails hypotheses 
but also is hypothetical, that is not sure and always falsifiable.>
The problem with this, as observed in a quote used in a prior 
discussion with HP Holtz, is that we never get any closer to 
truth.  Science doesn't advance, it just elaborates its hypotheses.
My thanks to him, by the way, for telling me I might profitably 
look into this subject.  To him I owe my amateur poring over 
a few acres of dreary prose.  I still have barely started walking 
around.  In school, my mnemonic for Positivism was 'I'm Positive 
I'm right.'  Would that I were only studying for an exam...

I had fun with the Times quote because the reporter so obviously 
contradicted the statement he purported to rephrase, and because 
when Hawking wrote:
<"I must say that personally, I have been reluctant to believe 
in extra dimensions," he writes on Page 54 of the new book. "But 
as I am a positivist, the question `Do extra dimensions really 
exist?' has no meaning. All one can ask is whether mathematical 
models with extra dimensions provide a good description of the 
universe.">
he was working from a context:
<There is an explicit assumption in logical positivism's analysis 
of science: a theory is a deductive system. This means that pragmatic 
aspects are not considered. Moreover, neopositivism was not interested 
in the real process of discovering, but it was concerned with 
the rational reconstruction of scientific knowledge, that is 
it dealt with logical (formal) relationships between statements 
in a given theory. According to logical positivism, there is 
not any method of discovering, and therefore a scientist can 
propose every hypothesis he prefers; only logical relationships 
between the hypothesis and the given empirical evidence are relevant. 
But there were some problems with this conception of science...>
Definitely.

I'm beginning to think that the diagnostic character of the philosophy 
of science is turgidity.  Back to the swamp.







 





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