RE: falsifying the idea of falsification
March 29, 2020 at 10:27 am
(This post was last modified: March 29, 2020 at 10:29 am by The Grand Nudger.)
(March 28, 2020 at 8:38 pm)Belacqua Wrote: What's at issue with falsifiability is not whether we practically will be able to find such a thing. It's that in principle the statement could be proven wrong.
Likewise no serious person expects the theory of evolution to be falsified. It is as proven as something can be. But we know in principle how it could be falsified -- by finding a rabbit from the Precambrian era. If it is possible in principle to show something is false, it's falsifiable.
(March 29, 2020 at 7:28 am)Belacqua Wrote: I don't doubt that researchers have used sonar and submarines and everything else to search Loch Ness. At this point it's perfectly reasonable to conclude that there's no monster.
This is not what scientists mean by the term "falsifiable."
To be falsifiable, there would have to be one piece of evidence which conclusively shows that there is no monster. And that's not what happened.
For the Loch Ness monster to be falsifiable, there only needs to be one piece of evidence which could prove it false. It's a falsifiable claim - I'd say there are plenty of pieces of such evidence...but a person arguing otherwise is only arguing that these pieces of evidence aren't -those- pieces of evidence.
At it's core, though..it's the claim that a dragon exists at the bottom of a lake. I guess falsification applies for monuments to boru and to dragons - but not for god.
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