RE: Requesting help from scientists/astronomers on the forum.
January 16, 2018 at 4:07 am
(This post was last modified: January 16, 2018 at 4:07 am by Thumpalumpacus.)
(January 15, 2018 at 12:29 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: To him, astronomy as a scientific endeavor cannot proceed beyond the "hypothesis" phase, and thus cannot be described as a real science.
He's wrong about this. Astronomy can, does, and has made predictions which were borne out by observation. Simply because humans cannot manipulate the conditions of the experiment doesn't mean that we cannot observe the conditions found inside natural experiments.
For instance, Chandrasekhar found in Einstein's equations the hypothetical existence of black holes. Now, we cannot of course create black holes, but we could, and did, search them out. That is, we went beyond the "hypothesis" phase not in a laboratory, but by observing the natural laboratory with a keener eye.
There are other sciences which aren't amenable to direct experimentation (paleontology, geology) which are nonetheless amenable to solving hypotheses by observing natural experiments.
He's clearly cherry-picking Popper in service to his agenda.
Ask him how humans might confirm the God hypothesis.
